When we might write a sociology book, the ancients would tell a story. Our preference for the literal, explicit, and linear should not be allowed to persuade us that our science is more sophisticated than narrative—as we have seen, the Iliad and the “Judgment of Paris” long anticipated sociology’s distinction between “ascribed” and “acquired” honor—nor to authorize our reading ancient narratives in the same manner as a textbook. On this note, let’s return to Genesis. With a merely literal reading, we purchase six-day young-earth creationism at the cost of reducing… Read more Degree is Shaked II →
Sociologists note among honor cultures a common tension between “ascribed” and “acquired” honor. By ascribed honor they mean the respect due to the holder of an office or rank, and,… Read more Degree Is Shaked →
Half a lawyer’s job is telling people things they don’t want to hear. For example, most calls I take concerning automobile damage terminate with the complaint that “you’re telling me I’m basically screwed.” Keep reading to find out why I’m usually thinking “yes.” If the cost of repairing a vehicle is less than its fair market value, then the owner is entitled to the cost of repair and related expenses, and to compensation for any depreciation in value. If the cost of repair is greater than the vehicle’s value (i.e.… Read more Auto Damage: Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze? →
SOUL: And all my care itself employs; That to preserve which me destroys. BODY: What but a soul could have the wit To build me up for sin so fit?… Read more Genesis: Head & Heel →
We have seen in the conservative tradition a tension between abstraction and context, or definition and circumstance, which perhaps has its foundation in the lateralization of the brain. Abstraction has… Read more Footnote to Pignoli and Porn Stars →
When I learned that Turning Point USA had ejected an electronic sex worker from one of its events, I expected to hear that she had then and there so energetically… Read more Of Pignoli and Porn Stars: Conservatism and the Body →
In 1964, Marshall McLuhan taunted Marxists for paying insufficient attention to words: “Wedded as they are to nineteenth-century industrial technology as the basis of class liberation, nothing could be more… Read more Religion, Fundamentalism, Gnosticism, BLM: Part IX →
In Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe, Voddie Baucham condemns evangelical sympathy for Critical Race Theory while professing a fundamentalist understanding of “the sufficiency of Scripture”… Read more Religion, Fundamentalism, Gnosticism, BLM: Part VIII →