A Thinking Reed

  • Friday Metal: Despised Icon, “Furtive Monologue”/ “In the Arms of Perdition”

    Okay, these guys make Alice in Chains sound like Britney Spears. I like how they have two singers to get the full range of incomprehensible screams and guttural growls:

  • Quote of the day

    Comes from Matt Yglesias: Personally, I consider myself someone who enjoys nostalgia. But this article (via Alyssa Rosenberg) about the boom in twentysomething nostalgia mostly reminded me of bad times via the phrase “three of the biggest bands of the period — Blink-182, Limp Bizkit and Creed — have each reunited for summer tours.” What…

  • WASM 2: Engaging the powers

    Having established the moral significance of animal suffering, Linzey goes on in chapter 2 to ask why, if the importance of animal suffering is so clear, has it been so often ignored? After all, as Stephen R. L. Clark has pointed out, it’s hard to identify a more obvious moral truism than “Avoid being the…

  • “Statism” revisited

    John makes some fair points in his response to this post. In particular, I probably did paint with too broad a brush in characterizing conservatives and libertarians as “mostly deny[ing] that [the environment, health care, etc.] are problems and/or that government has any role in addressing them.” At the same time, John is painting what…

  • WASM 1: The difference that difference makes

    In chapter 1 of Why Animal Suffering Matters, Linzey identifies several differences between humans and non-human animals that are typically offered as justifications for disregarding the interests of animals. In a neat twist, though, he aims to show that, properly understood, they call for a greater consideration of animal interests. Animals as natural slaves: Aristotle…

  • Statism

    “Statism” is a word that obscures more than it clarifies. Conservatives and libertarians tend to use it for any government program they don’t like. But everyone who’s not an anarchist admits the need of a state of some sort. The question is what the appropriate duties of the state are. Hence, I don’t find this…

  • Boldly not going

    At the risk of sounding crassly utilitarian, I think it’s frankly a dumb idea to send manned space missions to Mars (or even back to the Moon) when there are plenty of problems here on planet Earth whose amelioration could benefit from that sort of concerted national effort and cash (take your pick: extreme poverty,…

  • Coming attractions

    Last week I received my copy of Andrew Linzey’s new book, Why Animal Suffering Matters. I’ve only just started it, but it looks like Linzey develops in more detail an argument that he’s deployed in some of his other works: the differences between animals and humans, instead of justifying a lower moral status for animals,…

  • Got to admit it’s getting better

    Marvin writes that he hasn’t been inspired to do much blogging lately, partly because things are so much better than they were a few years ago: Politically, everything’s coming up roses. Brick by brick, the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress are laying the foundation for a progressive future. I think a lot of liberal…

  • A berry enjoyable morning

    It’s been uncharacteristically pleasant weather here for July. Today we drove to Homestead Farm in Maryland for some pick-your-own produce (blackberries and some peaches). I commented on Facebook on the irony of doing something for leisure that others do as backbreaking labor. Seems a bit decadent. On the other hand, blackberries are actually pretty easy…