Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 138

On Fri­days I share articles/resources about broad cul­tur­al, soci­etal and the­o­log­i­cal issues. Be sure to see the expla­na­tion and dis­claimers at the bot­tom. I wel­come your sug­ges­tions. If you read some­thing fas­ci­nat­ing please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. How to read books effi­cient­ly in grad school (Thomas Kidd, per­son­al newslet­ter): “Here’s the method I rec­om­mend for read­ing a book effi­cient­ly: read every word of the intro­duc­tion and con­clu­sion of a book. Then read the intro­duc­tion and con­clu­sion of each chap­ter word-for-word. With­in each chap­ter, read the first and last sen­tence of each body para­graph. Slow down when it gets inter­est­ing, or when the author hits on your par­tic­u­lar research inter­est.” Kidd is a his­to­ry pro­fes­sor at Bay­lor Uni­ver­si­ty. There is a length­i­er arti­cle with relat­ed thoughts titled Effi­cient Read­ing by Karin Wulf, a his­to­ry pro­fes­sor at William and Mary.
  2. The Anti-Chris­t­ian Alt-Right (Matthew Rose, First Things): “Almost every­thing writ­ten about the ‘alter­na­tive right’ in main­stream out­lets is wrong in one respect. The alt-right is not stu­pid. It is deep. Its ideas are not ridicu­lous. They are seri­ous. To appre­ci­ate this fact, one needs to inquire beyond its pres­ence on social media, where its obnox­ious use of insult, obscen­i­ty, and racism has earned it a rep­u­ta­tion for moral idio­cy. The rep­u­ta­tion is deserved, but do not be deceived. Behind its online tantrums and per­son­al attacks are argu­ments of gen­uine pow­er and expand­ing appeal…. The alt-right is anti-Chris­t­ian. Not by impli­ca­tion or insin­u­a­tion, but by con­fes­sion. Its lead­ing thinkers flaunt their rejec­tion of Chris­tian­i­ty and their desire to con­vert believ­ers away from it.”
  3. News To A For­eign Coun­try (David War­ren, per­son­al blog): “The State has its reli­gion, we have ours. So long as we remain meek and obe­di­ent, to any­thing we are required to sign, the Antichrist him­self wouldn’t care what we think. The trou­ble aris­es only when we fail to sign, salute, or check the right box­es. That is, from the Antichrist’s point of view, a form of defi­ance that requires pun­ish­ment — a pun­ish­ment that we have brought upon our­selves, as will be con­de­scend­ing­ly explained.” This is a tran­scribed speech by a Cana­di­an jour­nal­ist, and it is extreme­ly fiery and very Catholic.
  4. Trans­gen­der Ide­ol­o­gy Is Rid­dled With Con­tra­dic­tions. Here Are the Big Ones. (Ryan T Ander­son, Her­itage): “If gen­der is a social con­struct, how can gen­der iden­ti­ty be innate and immutable? How can one’s iden­ti­ty with respect to a social con­struct be deter­mined by biol­o­gy in the womb? How can one’s iden­ti­ty be unchange­able (immutable) with respect to an ever-chang­ing social con­struct? And if gen­der iden­ti­ty is innate, how can it be ‘flu­id’?”
  5. Mas­sacre in Myan­mar (Wa Lone, Kyaw Soe Oo, Simon Lewis and Antoni Slod­kows­ki, Reuters):  “Reuters has pieced togeth­er what hap­pened in Inn Din in the days lead­ing up to the killing of the 10 Rohingya – eight men and two high school stu­dents in their late teens. Until now, accounts of the vio­lence against the Rohingya in Rakhine state have been pro­vid­ed only by its vic­tims. The Reuters recon­struc­tion draws for the first time on inter­views with Bud­dhist vil­lagers who con­fessed to torch­ing Rohingya homes, bury­ing bod­ies and killing Mus­lims. This account also marks the first time sol­diers and para­mil­i­tary police have been impli­cat­ed by tes­ti­mo­ny from secu­ri­ty per­son­nel them­selves.”
  6. Should We Say “Of Course” To Fem­i­nism? (Anni­ka Nordquist, Stan­ford Review): “…I would chal­lenge all crit­i­cal­ly-think­ing fem­i­nists to ask the same ques­tion I asked my friend: if this move­ment does­n’t wel­come me, my opin­ions, or my solu­tions, why would I want to be part of it?” Yes, this is our Anni­ka.
  7. Is There a Smarter Way to Think About Sex­u­al Assault on Cam­pus?  (Jia Tol­lenti­no, The New York­er):  “In col­lege, every­thing is Janus-faced: what you inter­pret as refuge can lead to dan­ger, and vice ver­sa. One of the most high­ly val­orized social activ­i­ties, black­ing out and hook­ing up, holds the poten­tial for trau­ma with­in it like a seed.”
  8. What Teenagers Are Learn­ing From Online Porn (Mag­gie Jones, New York Times): “But you don’t have to believe that porn leads to sex­u­al assault or that it’s cre­at­ing a gen­er­a­tion of bru­tal men to won­der how it helps shape how teenagers talk and think about sex and, by exten­sion, their ideas about mas­culin­i­ty, fem­i­nin­i­ty, inti­ma­cy and pow­er.” This arti­cle uses graph­ic imagery.
  9. How Chi­nese over­seas stu­dents are learn­ing harsh life lessons (Eric Fish, South Chi­na Morn­ing Post):   “Inter­views with Chi­nese stu­dents study­ing abroad and aca­d­e­mics who research their atti­tudes present a com­plex pic­ture – one in which stu­dents enter and leave with diverse views and iden­ti­ties that often defy clear loy­al­ties or ide­o­log­i­cal labels. But nev­er­the­less, many feel caught in the geopo­lit­i­cal cross­fire – forced to choose a side or keep their heads down.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Things Glen Found Interesting A While Ago

Every week I’ll high­light an old­er link still worth your con­sid­er­a­tion. This week we have This Is What Makes Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats So Dif­fer­ent (Vox, Ezra Klein): the title made me skep­ti­cal, but it’s insight­ful (first shared in vol­ume 32).

Why Do You Send This Email?

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar pro­duced shrewd war­riors “who under­stood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a sim­i­lar way, we need to become wise peo­ple whose faith inter­acts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of Issachar.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a par­ti­san orga­ni­za­tion. To para­phrase anoth­er min­is­ter: we are not about the donkey’s agen­da and we are not about the elephant’s agen­da — we are about the Lamb’s agen­da. Hav­ing said that, I read wide­ly (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ide­o­log­i­cal Tur­ing test and in part because I do not believe I can fair­ly say “I agree” or “I dis­agree” until I can say “I under­stand”) and may at times share arti­cles that have a strong par­ti­san bias sim­ply because I find the arti­cle stim­u­lat­ing. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with every­thing an author says in an arti­cle I men­tion, much less things the author has said in oth­er arti­cles (although if I strong­ly dis­agree with some­thing in the arti­cle I’ll usu­al­ly men­tion it).

Also, remem­ber that I’m not report­ing news — I’m giv­ing you a selec­tion of things I found inter­est­ing. There’s a lot hap­pen­ing in the world that’s not mak­ing an appear­ance here because I haven’t found stim­u­lat­ing arti­cles writ­ten about it.

Archives at http://glenandpaula.com/wordpress/category/links.

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