Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

March 8, 2010 4

Thank God for Dead Soldiers

By Kenny Gradert in Politics

Something exciting is happening in the Supreme Court. Long story short, certain groups of Christians have been picketing funerals for dead soldiers. America deserves it, they say, for their tolerance of homosexuality. Divine punishment, they say. “Thank God for dead soldiers,” they say…
A father in Maine is appealing to the US Justices, wanting them to [...]

Tags: anti-gay, church and state, dead, dead soldiers, first amendment, for, freedom of press, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, funeral, funeral protesters, god, legislation, soldiers, Supreme Court, thank

January 28, 2010 0

The State of the Union(’s Allusive Domain)

By Robert Minto in Politics, Rhetoric

Because I am one who frequently bemoans the lack of rhetorical education, readers may well imagine that I adore moments of national public focus on rhetorical events. These moments tend to be Presidential speeches — the only rhetorical events of enough interest to actually supersede (gasp) regular programming. (Incidentally, that, for me, is the overriding [...]

Tags: agon, allusion, blogosphere, court of auditors, formal history, hbo, metanarrative, national virtues, new york times best seller, president, presidential speeches, speech, state of the union

December 29, 2009 5

Pluralism and Self-subversion

By Robert Minto in Politics, Self-subversion, Strategy

Pluralism is generally acknowledged to be a desirable condition for contemporary societies. Yet pluralism’s strongest advocates tend to be the oppressed, those who recognize it as an ideal not yet achieved. For them, advocating pluralism is a sort of survival tactic. The unoppressed, on the other hand, tend to advocate it (to a limited extent [...]

Tags: advocates, aspirations, co-existence, dissenters, dwelling, hearts, hegemony, human psyche, intellectual power, pluralism, political correctness, pride, reverse psychology, Self-subversion, subversion

December 27, 2009 0

Why Zizek Is Worth Reading…

By Robert Minto in Appreciation, Politics

Apart from the example of his tumbling ideas, the invigoration of his rhetoric, the penetrating asides, the humor, and his elucidations of Lacan, Hegel, Marx and Hitchcock, I think the following quotation from this old interview with Zizek best summarizes why I think he’s worth reading:
Today, whenever somebody tries to risk something politically, you immediately [...]

Tags: ethics, hegel, hegel marx, History, hitchcock, holocaust, humor, interview, lacan, Marx, mass murder, pragmatism, twentieth century, worth reading, Zizek

October 1, 2009 0

Familiolatry

By Robert Minto in Family, Idols, Politics

The following was written as an editorial for the Dordt student newspaper.
Among the idols we love to smash are pleasure, power, and reason. Among the idols we love to smash in others more than ourselves are self-righteousness and wealth. Among the idols we mostly fail to smash (or see for that [...]

Tags: child rearing, Dordt, editorial, Education, Family, human thought and action, morality, normativity, objectification, political agenda, political vision, self righteousness, sex object, sexual aberration, singleness, vulgar language

September 23, 2009 0

Excerpt from “The Politics of Pilgrimage”

By Robert Minto in Ecclesiology, Motivation, Patriotism, Politics

The following is an excerpt from a paper (The Politics of Pilgrimage) that I’ll be presenting at Wheaton this Saturday. Most of the paper is literary criticism, but this one section sets the stage for the theme I tease out of the literature I engage—pilgrimage as an interpretive category for the Christian life.
___________________
[...] For a [...]

Tags: centrality, dissemination of knowledge, grand visions, human society, literary criticism, pilgrimage, political purpose, political vision, tower of babel, wheaton

August 4, 2009 0

The Subversive Pedagogy of Calvin’s Institutes: Series Introduction

By Robert Minto in Blogging, Books, Education, Politics, Rhetoric

“Tis those whose cause my former booklet pled
Whose zeal to learn has wrought this tome instead.” — John Calvin
One of the most fascinating things about Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion is the history of its slow accretion of content from a simple four part booklet to a voluminous tome. One aspect of the Institutes [...]

Tags: compass, couplet, evolutions, institutes of the christian religion, irony, john calvin, persecution, piety, posterity, protestant revolution, roman church, Theology

August 3, 2009 0

Harvard Business School and the Myth of Managerial Expertise

By Robert Minto in Books, Business, Characters, Education, Politics

A few days ago I finished the intriguing memoir of P.D. Broughton entitled Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School. Broughton attended the school in 2004-2006. He describes the roundabout path that led him to it: a distinguished career in journalism that left him, not unfulfilled, but unwealthy. To remedy this condition, [...]

Tags: After Virtue, Ahead of the Curve, astonishing truth, Books, cambridge massachusetts, harvard business school, harvard mba, harvard model, macintyre, managerial expertise, moral behavior, Philip Broughton, Virtue

July 1, 2009 0

One of the Intellectual Downsides to Freedom

By Robert Minto in Books, Community, Politics

“I wonder what a poet and novelist would have in common to talk about nowadays. After all, a shared knowledge of old books was probably the largest part of the ‘loving friendship’ between Etienne and Montaigne. Today they would share—what? Robert Altman’s films?” — Gore Vidal
In most circles, canons of literature (and canons of art [...]

Tags: canons, classical tradition, cultural imperialism, gore vidal, ideological hegemony, intersubjectivity, montaigne, old books, religious conviction, robert altman, social position, standard of excellence, theorists, western civilization

June 29, 2009 0

The Gatekeeper as Anti-autobiography

By Robert Minto in Books, Criticism, Man, Politics, Rhetoric

In his book The Gatekeeper, in the midst of a discussion of “anti-philosophers,” Terry Eagleton throws out the following sentence.
… anti-autobiography means not just not writing your autobiography, an astonishly prevalent practice, but writing it in such a way as to outwit the prurience and immodesty of the genre by frustrating your own desire for [...]

Tags: autobiography, delusions of grandeur, Desire, Gatekeeper, hypocrisy, immodesty, jim elliot, journals, notations, prurience, r l stevenson, self deception, terry eagleton

Matt Gerrelts: I am suggesting that he violates his position by pointing to a solution at all, but rather than say...
Evan: Great news! Congratulations, Daniel.
Robert Minto: If your analysis is correct, then isn’t he even violating his position by pointing to a solution...
Matt Gerrelts: Although dying might appear to be the ultimate “religious” act, I think that even dying...
Robert Minto: I’m coming more and more to think that Bataille mainly wanted to emphasize the intolerable...

Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Thank God for Dead Soldiers

The State of the Union(’s Allusive Domain)

Pluralism and Self-subversion

Why Zizek Is Worth Reading…

Familiolatry

Excerpt from “The Politics of Pilgrimage”

The Subversive Pedagogy of Calvin’s Institutes: Series Introduction

Harvard Business School and the Myth of Managerial Expertise

The Gatekeeper as Anti-autobiography

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