Books

Books

Can the Left Find God?

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lerner.jpgA foolish person doesn’t recognize that one can learn much from opponents. So liberals have begun to understand that they need God on their side as much as the Christian Right does. The lesson from conservatives, said Rabbi Michael Lerner, is that it’s okay to base policy on faith and spiritual values, and it’s important to stand up for what you believe in. “When they come to a decision about what they believe in, they fight for it,” he said of the Christian Right in a recent interview. “And they’re willing to lose an election for the sake of what they believe in.”

Tagged: God, Interviews, Michael Lerner, Politics, The Left Hand of God
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Books

Uncovering Iron John

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Used in conjunction with author Robert Bly, “Iron John” has come to symbolize gatherings in which men drum and dance in the woods, unleashing their own wild sides. It has been credited as a spark to the “men’s movement,” and attacked as trying to equate the emotional suffering of men with centuries of oppression of women. All of those things carry at least a hint of truth, but they ignore what Bly’s Iron John is really about: the idea that men are worn down and worn out, even as they’ve become more sensitive to the planet and their mates.

Tagged: Interviews, Iron John, Robert Bly
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Books

Pity the Rich Genius

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I’m not quite sure how one quantifies it, but Crain’s Chicago Business has decided that writers given half-million-dollar MacArthur “genius” grants become fat, slovenly pigs. Actually, the publication has found a correlation between getting one of these awards and a significant decline in the quality and quantity of an author’s output. There’s even a handy, authoritative chart! Is there a cause-and-effect relationship here, or is the MacArthur Foundation simply an excellent judge of when writers are past their primes? (Via Salon.)

Tagged: MacArthur Fellows Program, MacArthur Fellowship, MacArthur Foundation, MacArthur Genius Grants
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Books

Critiquing Critics

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The New York Review of Books has an excellent piece in its July 15 issue on the nature of criticism. It deals specifically with Dale Peck’s already notorious Hatchet Jobs – which, of course, I haven’t read – and concerns itself primarily with the role of the critic. The author’s conclusion is that Peck is too busy “punishing” the authors he’s slamming to effectively “judge” them, and that Peck needs to offer an alternative to the books he loathes to be a good critic.

Tagged: Critics, Dale Peck, New York Review of Books
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