From "Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?" (NYT, February 14, 2008):But now, [Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason] said, something different is happening: anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) have fused in a particularly insidious way.Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters.[...]Ms. Jacoby doesn’t expect to revolutionize the nation’s educational system or cause millions of Americans to switch off “American Idol” and pick up Schopenhauer. But she would like to start a conversation about why the United
When I was in college, I would often see freshmen students start their first day of school with great intentions. When asked their major, they would proudly state; “I’m studying engineering!”, “I’m studying computer science”, or “I’m studying nursing”. But many freshmen students, after a few semesters, would change their major to something easier, drop out, or get kicked out of college. It always seemed to me that kids who go away to college (as opposed to staying home) were entering a system that would allow them to fail if they weren’t careful.
Running the Numbers
An American Self-Portrait
Le statistiche a volte non lasciano, nell'opinione pubblica, traccia del pericolo che raccontano, dati allarmanti sembrano nient'altro che semplici numeri che non ci riguardano.
Chris Jordan con queste opere lancia uno sguardo provocativo sulla cultura americana dando ai dati delle statistiche un'immagine, ad esempio una foto con 29,569 rivoltelle (il numero degli omicidi causati da armi da fuoco nel 2004) fa sicuramente più effetto della cifra in se.
Dopo aver visto le sue gallerie avremo sicuramente un modo diverso di leggere le cifre delle statistiche.
The Problem: The Colossian "Heresy"As Paul penned his letter to the believers in Colossae, all was not well in the Colossian church. A mix of Jewish and Greek false teachers had crept in and were challenging the true gospel. They were filling the Colossian Christians' heads with fear of the "unseen" powers and authorities. They were telling them that they had to be physically circumcised in order to attain salvation. They were telling them that they must do certain practices and observe certain festivals in order to be saved. Paul warns the Colossians in 2:8 to "Watch out" from those who would take them captive by their philosophies of men and empty deception. The content of the letter to the Colossian Christians is Paul's answer to this problem that was upsetting the Church at Colossae. Although there is considerable debate as to the extent and content of the "philosophy and empty deception" of this false teaching, it is clear from Paul's writing that there was d
