Posts tagged "The NY Times Magazine"
The Flying Dutchman, Schadenfreude, and Tim Tebow
Religion / Science / Social Science / Sports / Suffering

The Flying Dutchman, Schadenfreude, and Tim Tebow

by Michael Sansbury on Apr 30, 2013 • No Comments

The scientist who yields anything to theology, however slight, is yielding to ignorance and false pretenses, and as certainly as if he granted that a horse-hair put into a bottle of water will turn into a snake.

–H. L. Mencken

Saturday was my birthday, and I was showered with a heap of my favorite kind of gift: Stories about triumphant people whose lives have been ruined. I’d like to say that it is theological conviction that makes me read these stories end to end, but it is probably some sort of dopamine-stimulating Schadenfreude. Either way, it is an embarrassment of riches.

First, the…

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Forgiving Conor McBride
Death / Forgiveness / Grace in Practice

Forgiving Conor McBride

by David Zahl on Jan 7, 2013 • 5 Comments

Stop what you’re doing and go and read the story from this past Sunday’s NY Times Magazine, “Can Forgiveness Play a Role in Criminal Justice?” Actually, check that: wait until you have 20-30 minutes and are in a place where you can absorb an emotional grand piano being dropped on you (in a good way). Paul Tullis relates the harrowing story of Conor McBride, a 19 year-old Floridian who was convicted for killing his girlfriend Ann Grosmaire in 2010, and how both of the families involved opted to pursue something called “restorative justice,” an uncommon but legally sanctioned and attorney-mediated…

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Another Week Ends: Monastic (Olympic) Masochism, Successful Children, Justified Paranoia, Mumford and Sons, Edward Gorey, Creedal Colbert and the Return of PZ’s Podcast
America / Books / Children / Humor / Law / Music / Religion / Social Science / Sports / Theology / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Monastic (Olympic) Masochism, Successful Children, Justified Paranoia, Mumford and Sons, Edward Gorey, Creedal Colbert and the Return of PZ’s Podcast

by David Zahl on Aug 10, 2012 • 2 Comments

1. As the Olympics wind down (and Morrissey gets his London back), we would do well to read Heather Havrilesky’s jaw-droppingly insightful piece “The Loneliness of the Person Watching the Long Distance Runner” that appeared in the NY Times Magazine last week. She absolutely nails the religiosity at the heart of much contemporary athleticism. And she even touches on how we instrumentalize suffering in a distinctly theology-of-glory-like way, i.e. as a means of self-salvation. Which is a bit ironic, since as far as cultural commentators are concerned, I consider Havrilesky a gold-medalist:

If the ’70s and ’80s were marked by a…

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Longing Machines and the Pinteresting World of Online Curation
Identity / Technology

Longing Machines and the Pinteresting World of Online Curation

by David Zahl on Jul 25, 2012 • 3 Comments

Here’s a meta one for you. In the most recent issue of The NY Times Magazine, the ever inspired Carina Chocano offered some wise and timely reflections on the “curation” phenomenon that occupies so many of our waking hours these days, esp in the form of websites like Pinterest and Tumblr. Chocano interprets the popularity of these sites as evidence of an addiction to (spiritual) longing–a desire to be understood via the objects (and people) we identify ourselves with. In her view, we are not after the objects/vistas/works of art themselves so much as the way those things make us…

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Another Week Ends: Spoiled Kids, Harvard Perfectionism, KKKlan Grace, Lonergan’s Lament, Negative Thinking, Mormonism, Golf Ethics, Sorkinisms, and Fall Conference Update
America / Books / Children / Conferences / Education / Film / Grace in Practice / Law / Music / Social Science / Testimony / Theology / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Spoiled Kids, Harvard Perfectionism, KKKlan Grace, Lonergan’s Lament, Negative Thinking, Mormonism, Golf Ethics, Sorkinisms, and Fall Conference Update

by David Zahl on Jun 29, 2012 • 8 Comments

1. Over at The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert surveyed the latest swath of parenting books, asking the question “Why Are American Kids So Spoiled?” Much of the article reiterates what we’ve been hearing with alarming frequency the past couple years, namely that the current “helicopter/snowplow” culture of control is backfiring, royally. It’s an honest if also fairly depressing analysis: the “performancism” epidemic being perpetuated (somewhat out of necessity) by US colleges has filtered down to the preschool level, which, combined with the hangover from the self-esteem movement and incredible advances in technology has created this weird situation where kids grow…

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A Boy and His Dog: When One-Way Love Meets Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Children / Grace in Practice / Relationships

A Boy and His Dog: When One-Way Love Meets Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

by David Zahl on Feb 7, 2012 • 4 Comments

Ready for a tearjerker? The NY Times Magazine article “Wonder Dog” could be just what the doctor ordered. The story of Iyal Winokur, a Russian boy with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome adopted by American parents (a rabbi and his wife, in fact), it’s an extremely moving example of one-way love accomplishing what restraint couldn’t, an animal reaching through emotional and physiological defenses that had frustrated all human patience and compassion. You might even say the dog in question, Chancer, is conditioned for the sort of unconditionality that you and I could never muster (I want one!), whose object has done nothing…

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Rom Com Cliches, David Foster Wallace and the Fine Art of the (Over-)Qualification
Film / Identity / Literature / Technology

Rom Com Cliches, David Foster Wallace and the Fine Art of the (Over-)Qualification

by David Zahl on Aug 25, 2011 • 2 Comments

It’s time for everybody’s favorite new innovation in criticism deflection: self-awareness! I’m referring to the idea that if you surface the possible criticisms of what you’re creating/doing/saying, they no longer apply – that you are justified, in other words, either artistically, rhetorically or intellectually by the awareness of your faults. And while it’s certainly commendable for filmmakers and writers to be able to laugh at themselves, as the articles point out, oftentimes the winking is a way of masking despair and/or insecurity. In the Atlantic, Chloe Angyal articulates how the trend played itself out in the romantic comedy arena this…

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