Pop Culture
Apocalypse Then: Armageddon Fever in the 1980’s
Set the dial on the wayback machine to the 1980’s: Reagan was president, Russia was still “the Soviet Union” (which Reagan called “the Evil Empire”), and people lived daily with the fear that the arms race between the U.S. and the Soviets, along with the public-policy known as “M.A.D.” (mutually assured destruction) might one day [...]
Manunkind on “Cyber Monday”
This Monday morning, I spent about 50 minutes trying to convince a group of 12 students, 18-20 year olds, that they should share the moral philosopher Philip Hallie’s outrage about Nazis torturing Jewish and Gypsy children… almost 70 years ago… and that they should enter into his professional concern — his puzzlement — over the [...]
Freedom of Speech 2.0: Amazon Customer Reviews
The customer reviews of a new Playmobil® toy reveal the political and ideological contradictions of the modern era.
The toy itself, a “security check point,” seems like a strange vehicle for imaginative childhood play, not least because one goal of our newfangled “Culture of Security” seems to be the elimination of imagination. I find this [...]