(Liberal) Skepticism vs. (Orthodox) Doubt

There are certain streams of “emerging” Christianity which seem to think that doubt is some revolutionary new stance that has finally had permission to emerge now that we are “new kinds of Christians.” Formerly oppressed by fundamentalisms that quashed any hint of uncertainty, such Christians are at pains to point out that we can never…

On Misunderstanding David Brooks Redux

Misreading Brooks’ The Social Animal seems to be all the rage. To H. Allen Orr’s skewed interpretation, we can now add this aside from one of my favorites, James Wood: These days, one is continually running up against a crass evolutionary neuroscientific pragmatism that is loved by popular evolutionary psychologists and newspaper columnists (of the…

Warren Buffett: Stop Coddling the Super-Rich

It is surely telling that Warren Buffett’s important editorial, “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich,” did not appear in the Wall Street Journal. Indeed, I find myself wondering whether it was floated there, then rejected. Wouldn’t that have been most conspicuous place for Buffett’s offing? In any case, one wonders how the Tea Party ideologues in the…