Feb 18
The Washington Post published a blunt, acrimonious, and utterly superb article by Susan Jacoby this past weekend, which took aim — and hit the mark — at the demise of true intellectualism in the nation. A National Science Foundation poll observed that as many as one in five Americans believes that the sun revolves around the earth. Shocking1. Jacoby writes that the dumbing-down of America is the inevitable byproduct of a culture who will not tolerate any source of information besides fast-paced, sound-bite-ridden visual media2. People have become wholly uninformed, and even graduates of higher education are complicit, reading less frequently and watching obsessively. What is worse, she notes that the citizenry does not seem to care. The blend of ignorance and indifference is of greatest, and gravest, concern.
An exemplary excerpt:
Not knowing a foreign language or the location of an important country is … (Read the rest of this article »)
Jan 26
In an effort to maintain the factual, informative nature of this forum, I will try to avoid the messiness of the political world as often as possible. However, I did read an article the other day that grabbed my attention, and I am compelled to share its substance.
The Charity Case, by Zak Moore (Dartmouth ‘09)
Zak Moore ‘09 wrote the article cited above for The Dartmouth (Dartmouth College’s daily newspaper). It was published on January 23rd. In the piece, Moore responds to the common accusation that “‘liberals are charitable and conservatives selfish.’” While I will not delve into any deep discussion of my own political persuasions (indeed, they are underdeveloped), I do find Moore’s assessment of the actual state of affairs to be spot on.
The foundation of his argument is that, in fact, young ‘conservatives,’ and especially young religious conservatives, are significantly more likely to participate in charitable activites (time, monetary donations) than their self-defined ‘liberal’ counterparts. More surprisingly, conservative philanthropy surpasses liberal philanthropy for both religious and secular organizations. He makes the subtle observation that charity, if institutionalized in the form of tax hikes and a welfare state, is not charity at all. Charity must always be a voluntary act, and Moore states that charitable organizations actually do a far better job than government bureaucracy at stretching the value of a donated dollar.
As I don’t want to merely repeat his argument, I’ll stop here, and let you read the article for yourself.
Comments welcome.