Buckley’s Mix

Lincoln-Darwin

I have been putting together a program on Lincoln an Darwin, the hook being the fact that they were born within a few hours of each other. Happily Poe was born a few weeks before, so I didn’t have to worry about him.
Lincoln and Darwin shared several personal traits. Both were subject to bouts of [...]

Why anthropology matters

Three brothers came from the east, and each founded an Albanian tribe. One brother had a saddle (shala), and became the ancestor of the Shala tribe; another had a winnowing sieve (shoshi), and became the ancestor of the Shoshi tribe; the third had nothing, so he said “Mir dit” (good-day), and went on to become the [...]

Institute for the Psychological Sciences

A pleasant chat today with Fr Chares Sikorsky of the Institute for the Psychological Sciences in Arlington VA. What has always astounded me are the people to whom those who are troubled look for help. The Ethics Advisor at Esquire magazine, the law professor, the marriage counsellor (who is really a divorce counsellor). Wilde said that divorces [...]

Grave Robbers and Coal Miners

Sir Isaiah Berlin famously distinguished between two kinds of intellectuals. A fox, like Berlin, is a polymath who can talk intelligently (and amusingly) about an endless variety of things. By contrast, a hedgehog burrows down and makes himself the master of a single subject.
A cute distinction, and one that served Berlin well, after he found [...]