Culture – Page 4 – The Scholar's Stage

Notes From All Over (9/10/18): Constitutional Cycles, Cognitive Gadgets, and the Uses of Repression

09 October, 2018Bharat, By The People, Cognition, Culture, Military Affairs, Narrative, Notes From All Over, The Middle Kingdom

TOP BILLING “The Recent Unpleasantness: Understanding the Cycles of Constitutional Time”Jack M. Balkin, Public Law Research Paper No. 648. 8 August 2018. (Indiana Law Journal, 2018 Forthcoming). Our present condition is a little like an eclipse, although much less enjoyable. To understand what is going on today in America, we have to think in terms […]

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So Why Did They Publish Them? – A Few Notes on the Latest Batch of Fail-to-Replicates

02 September, 2018Cognition, Culture

The big news this week is a fresh study in Nature that reports the results of a team that sought to replicate 21 high profile experiments in social psychology, all originally published by the journals Nature or Science between the years 2010 and 2015. The study has garnered a lot of headlines. You can read […]

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Tradition is Smarter Than You Are

27 August, 2018Culture, Ecology, Small and Simple Things

The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to [a fence] and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. […]

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Notes From All Over 04/08/2018 (WEIRD Catholics, Chinese Intimidation Tactics, and Human Genetics)

05 August, 2018Books and Literature, Community, Culture, Europa Regina, Military Affairs, Notes From All Over, The Middle Kingdom

A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit. TOP BILLING “The Origins of WEIRD Psychology”Jonathan Schulz, Duman Barahmi-Rad, Jonathan Beauchamp, and Joseph Henrich. PsyArXiv. 2 July 2018. Recent research not only confirms the existence of substantial psychological variation around the globe but also highlights the peculiarity of populations that are Western, Educated, Industrialized, […]

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Being vs. Doing in Ancient Chinese Thought–A Note

11 July, 2018Cognition, Culture, Narrative, The Middle Kingdom

Yesterday’s excerpt from the Zuo Zhuan is an excellent case study in the difficulty of translating classical Chinese into English (or into modern Chinese, for that matter). Here is the sentence of interest, as translated by Stephen Durrant, Wai-yee Lee, and David Schaberg: Having watched from her bedchamber, the girl said, “Gongsun Hei is handsome, to be […]

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Manning Up in Ancient China

10 July, 2018Culture, The Middle Kingdom

One of many delightful pearls found inside the Zuo Zhuan, the oldest historical narrative in East Asia: The younger sister of Xuwu Fan of Zheng was beautiful. You Chu had already formalized his engagement with her when Gongsun Hei sent someone who insisted on presenting her with a betrothal fowl. Alarmed, Xuwu Fan told Zichan. […]

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My Grand Theory of Jordan Peterson

23 March, 2018Culture, Narrative

I have a short essay out in the Weekly Standard this week arguing that most of the commentariat have a deeply flawed understanding of pop psychologist Jordan Peterson. To quote: The spectacular rise of Jordan Peterson has caught much of the world flat-footed. caught much of the world flat-footed. Discussions of the psychology professor from […]

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A Short Defense of the Musical Hamilton

18 February, 2018By The People, Culture, History, Narrative

Image Source I am a fan of the musical Hamilton. My willingness to acclaim its merits is quite shameless, actually. This may strike some readers as odd, and perhaps strangely arbitrary. One of Hamilton’s main selling points is its casting of Hispanic and black leads to play historical figures who were in reality lily-white. As with […]

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Do Mil-Mil Exchanges With the Chinese Do More Harm than Good?

04 December, 2017Culture, Diplomacy, Military Affairs, The Middle Kingdom

The PLAN destroyer Xi’an berths in Pearl Harbor to take part in the June 2016 RIMPAC exercises.Original Source. Near the beginning of Ian Easton’s excellent new book, which I shall be reviewing for another publication, is an interesting story. It is commonly claimed that increased contact (or “exchange”) between those under Party employ and those serving […]

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Notes From All Over: Communists, Partisans, and P-Values

27 October, 2017Books and Literature, Community, Culture, Domestic Politics, Notes From All Over, Political Theory, Spies and Spooks, The Middle Kingdom, Tyranny

Notes From All Over: A collection of recently published articles, essays, reports, or blog posts of merit.TOP BILLING “This Is What A 21st-Century Police State Really Looks Like“Megha Rajagopalan. Buzzfeed (18 October 2017). “In the countryside, if you get even one call from abroad, they will know. It’s obvious,” said R., who agreed to meet me in […]