History
"In the 1830s and 1840s, several European countries were gripped by a passion for statistics. It made things visible that had previously been hidden or taken for granted. The poor appeared as a social entity only when they were counted, and the resulting emergence of 'poverty' as
Philosophy
"Contrary to present-day prophets of self-discovery [...] there is no authentic core you discover when you probe yourself. Rather, knowing oneself requires a commitment to travel outside of oneself and join with others. Self-knowledge is a destination not an origin. At the beginning, before examination, we are strangers to ourselves.
Commerce
"The image of the Other that Europeans had when they set out to conquer the planet is of a naked savage, a cannibal and pagan, whose humiliation and oppression is the sacred right and duty of the European–who is white and Christian. The cause of the exceptional brutality
Books
"[Herodotus] understood that to know ourselves we have to know Others, who act as the mirror in which we see ourselves reflected; he knew that to understand ourselves better we have to understand Others, to compare ourselves with them, to measure ourselves against them. As a citizen of the
History
"The beloved village priest, that staple figure of Romantic fiction, was a very rare breed [in 18th-century rural France]. In most people's minds, the man in black was supposed to be useful, like a doctor, a snake-catcher or a witch. He should be willing to write inaccurate
History
"The Pseudo-Dionysius's works were a triumph of the Neoplatonist imagination. In an age of science like our own, they seem wildly fanciful. The lists of seraphim, cherubim, thrones, powers, and the other grades of angelic beings seem like an elaborate fantasy game. However, in an age of
Commerce
"[The ability to transfer debts to another person is] what determines money's value–and why money, even though it is nothing but credit, cannot just be created at will by anyone. For sellers to accept buyers' IOUs in payment, they must be convinced of two things.
Commerce
"Precisely because chivalric ideals had little relevance for modern pike-and-artillery warfare, they became all the more cherished by those who dreamed of far-off lands. Places in that vast unknown territory called the 'Indies' that were either uninhabited or occupied by pagans rightfully belonged to the Church. It
Sports
How did Joseph Vincent Paterno gain so much power over Pennsylvania State University that the top officials of that university would agree to cover up (and thus enable) child molestation in order to protect Paterno's chance to set the college football record for most coaching wins? An essay
California
On September 18, 1986, a student at Benicia High School in Benicia, California was shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend after an on-campus quarrel. I was a high school sports reporter for the Benicia Herald in 1986-87, and wrote the following column for the newspaper, which it published on September
Politics
"[Latin America] must pass from nationalism to interdependence, but interdependence is senseless without a basis in independence. Only independent nations can become interdependent partners. If not, they become protectorates, neo-colonies, subject states." -- Carlos Fuentes, Foreword, Ariel by José Enrique Rodó (Austin, TX : University of Texas Press, 1988)
Philosophy
"To propose to a man that he be someone else, that he become someone else, is to propose that he cease to be himself. Every man defends his own personality, and will agree to a change in his way of thinking or of feeling only in so far as