Thoreau’s Ferocious Critique of Philanthropy Does Not Make Him “Selfish”
After Kathryn Schulz’s eviscerating portrait of Thoreau in the New Yorker, the nineteenth-century nature boy…
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What’s Islamophobia, and Do I Have It?
I’m not arguing that Islamophobia is racist, or that Islamophobes are racists, because that’s not quite what’s happening. For one thing, Islamophobes embrace ex-Muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and racists wouldn’t (indeed couldn’t) do the same. But consider the similarities: the Islamophobe must assume Muslims suffer some sort of pre-Islamic inferiority, sufficient to explain how some (largely non-white) people—actually, a lot of people—not only fell for Islam in the first place, but then stayed down. How long do enforced ideologies last? Nazism: twelve years. Communism: some decades. Islam: Fourteen centuries and counting.
Read MoreLabor Day Reading: An Innocent Man Sent “To Dust” by the State
A recent story in the New Yorker on the execution of an innocent man seldom mentions religion, though the elements are all there.
Read MoreJournalistic Blind Spots and the “Centrist-to-Liberal” Christian
When one religious voice seems to dominate public discussion we need to ask why. Is it because it is the only voice speaking? Or is the media ignoring other voices?
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