Philosophical notes…
Anglo Files
“I’ve grown accustomed to British friends who, when it comes to personal matters, don’t ask much, don’t tell much and really, really, don’t want to get into it. We lived for more than 15 years next to a couple who corresponded with us almost exclusively by letter. I have become an expert in the art of the anodyne weather discussion. I’m chronically sorry.”
Sarah Lyall, "Ta-Ta, London. Hello Awesome. " - http://nyti.ms/164tL1O
After Bellah
“Robert N. Bellah, a distinguished sociologist of religion who sought nothing less than to map the American soul, in both the sacred and secular senses of the word, died on July 30 in Oakland, Calif. He was 86... Professor Bellah, who was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Bill Clinton in 2000, came to wide attention in 1967 with a seminal article, ‘Civil Religion in America’.... ‘It’s a complicated relationship between politics and religion,’ he said. ‘But our tradition by and large has used religion to hold the nation in judgment and to assert that it should operate under higher moral standards.’”
"Robert Bellah, Sociologist of Religion Who Mapped the American Soul, Dies at 86" - http://nyti.ms/13RJdyA cf. “Civil Religion in America.”
Ibn Rashd (Averroes) on In Our Time
“Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the philosopher Averroes who worked to reconcile the theology of Islam with the rationality of Aristotle achieving fame and infamy in equal measure... Averroes was a 12th century Islamic scholar who devoted his life to defending philosophy against the precepts of faith. He was feted by Caliphs but also had his books burnt and suffered exile. Averroes is an intellectual titan, both in his own right and as a transmitter of ideas between ancient Greece and Modern Europe. His commentary on Aristotle was so influential that St Thomas Aquinas referred to him with profound respect as ‘The Commentator’.”
Ibn Sina on In our Time
Melvyn Bragg discusses the Persian Islamic philosopher Avicenna - http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/b00855lt
US Dept State Religion
“This past week, the US Department of State announced the creationof a new office that ‘will focus on engagement with faith-based organizations and religious institutions around the world to strengthen US development and diplomacy and advance America’s interests and values.’ Citing widespread religious persecution and violence overseas, proponents of the new office of ‘religious engagement’ hope to further institutionalize an official US commitment to globalize religious freedom, marginalize extremism, and promote interfaith dialogue and religious tolerance. There is great excitement in some quarters about the prospects for new partnerships among the US government, for the increasingly vast array of sub-contractors that work on its behalf, and for the various faith-based religious and civil society actors and institutions abroad. Yet this initiative also raises concerns regarding the intersection of religious freedom, religious establishment, and foreign policy.”
"Engaging Religion at the Department of State" The Immanent Frame Blog - http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/?p=38378
Lowry's Repetition
“Lowry’s status as a ‘local’ painter is not usually staked on this kind of topographical exactitude, however, and if he came to be thought of in Manchester as a pre-eminently local artist, a painter of Manchester for Manchester, this was on the basis of his vast output of imaginary landscapes. Those made in the late 1920s through to the war years, in particular, are made from a few repeated motifs, different each time they appear but similar enough to persuade us that we have seen them before, that they are known to us, part of the familiar furniture of his city... The repetitiveness in these pictures has been seen as evidence of Lowry’s limitations; the narrowness of his interests and imagination, what he himself described as his ‘obsession’ with the industrial landscape of Pendlebury. For Wagner, however, repetitiveness was vital to Lowry’s project as a local painter. Sooner or later these repetitions would come to seem merely repetitive, ‘run of the mill’ as she puts it, and something else would have to be tried; but until that time ‘they were a way of matching his pictures’ rhythm to the life of the street. Repetition … offered a means to expand the components of a single city street – chimneys and smokestacks, doors and windows, stairways and fences, men and women – into a world that seems cohesive, complete.’”
John Barrell, "At tate Britain: L.S. Lowry," London Review of Books - http://bit.ly/1e12xOu
Tracking the YouVersion
“As YouVersion became increasingly popular, other publishers also came to view the app as a positive force — less a threat than a marketing opportunity. Although there are no ads on the app and no plans to create any, Mr. Gruenewald said, YouVersion collects vast amounts of data on Bible readership patterns. That trove of data provides valuable information about the habits and preferences of Christians that YouVersion selectively shares with its traditional publishing partners, such as which verses are the most popular within their own translations.”
"App Puts the Bible in 100 Million Palms" - http://nyti.ms/19nbZy5
Frankfurt School at War
“War makes for strange bedfellows. Among the oddest pairings that World War II produced was the bringing together of William ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan, head of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) — a precursor to the CIA — and a group of German Jewish Marxists he hired to help the United States understand the Nazis... Despite the vast political and cultural gap separating Donovan from Neumann and his team, the spymaster trusted the radicals with the vital security task of providing advice about the Nazis. In the words of John Herz, another young refugee assigned to Neumann’s office (and later a major figure in postwar international relations theory), ‘It was as though the left-Hegelian World Spirit had briefly descended on the Central European Department of the OSS.’”
William Scheuermann "The Frankfurt School at War," Foreign Affairs - http://fam.ag/13HqNiI
Faith and Works at Apple
“The world-religion of the educated and prosperous in the twenty-first century is Apple, with its Vatican in Cupertino and its cathedrals in the light-filled Apple Stores that draw pilgrims gripping iPhones and iPads like rosaries. Apple’s flock is secured against heresy by censors who rule the online App Store; only applications with Apple’s imprimatur are allowed on an iPhone. Programmers risk excommunication—with all their works condemned to being listed in an Index of Prohibited Software—if they violate canon law by bypassing Apple’s banking system or ignoring its infallible doctrine. Rebellious heretics can ‘jailbreak’ an iPhone and induce it to accept software anathematized by Apple, but a heretic’s phone is refused communion when presented for repair at the Apple Store.”
Edward Mendelson, "Faith and Works at Apple," NY Review Blog - http://bit.ly/18pqI8E
On A Secular Age
“I’m vastly oversimplifying a rich, complex book, but what I most appreciate is his vision of a ‘secular’ future that is both open and also contains at least pockets of spiritual rigor, and that is propelled by religious motivation, a strong and enduring piece of our nature.”
David Brooks, "The Secular Society" - http://nyti.ms/1awm75i