I write a lot, and your time is limited. So I’ve listed a few posts below that I particularly like, and have given each a description:
Batman
On “Batman Begins” — A man dresses as a bat and fights ninjas as a result of his education: he’s learned what justice is, and yes, we can learn quite a lot from his story.
Bible
Commentary on the Book of Jonah — Can we transcend Jonah? His arrogance may not stem from his person, but rather a certain relation to the Law: his very obedience, his very piety, may make him problematic.
Remembrance — Does the Bible have a political teaching? It seems to reject the “city” as merely an invention of Cain’s.
Blogging
On Blogging, Having an Opinion, and the Quality and Trustworthiness of Your Voice — The more a blogger takes money, the more people feel his voice is compromised. The implications of this for those of us trying to establish political change through the net are huge: it means that some of our best voices might have “sold out” already.
Dickinson
On Emily Dickinson’s “These are the days when birds come back…” — Old loves continually tempt: getting over old loves is getting over yourself, and that teaching has implications well beyond our earthly eros.
Hopkins
From Love to God: On Hopkins’ “As Kingfishers Catch Fire” — the motion of objects is a descent from the Spirit: the ascent is when we speak who we truly are.
Lincoln
Analysis of The Gettysburg Address: Is Democracy Feasible? — Lincoln and Jefferson have different grounds for establishing the truth of the statement “all men are created equal.” Since the whole of American history is the tension between “liberty” and “equality,” this is a very important discussion, to say the least.
Analysis of Lincoln’s “Second Inaugural” — How exactly is a democracy supposed to exist again, after its citizens have spent years trying to kill each other?
Nietzsche
Towards a Nietzschean Understanding of Politics: Notes on “The Case of Wagner” — In “The Case of Wagner,” Wagner is blasted by Nietzsche for his shoddy music, hypocritical critique of Christianity, and his anti-Semitism.
Plato
On Polemarchus: Commentary on the Republic of Plato, 331d-336a — Justice as “helping friends and harming enemies” emerges after a rejection of justice as “telling the truth and paying back debts.” The latter notion is all one needs to run a business; the former is what we think alone will run public life.
A Reading of Plato’s “Crito” — What is our relation to any given philosopher? In what way does he stand outside the city even while being within?
Shakespeare
The Coming Age: Macbeth and the Birth of the Modern World — Duncan’s feudal rule is emphatically not an option for Malcolm, who gives everyone a promotion and seems to want a constitutional monarchy rather than absolute rule. The transition from Duncan to Malcolm involved the bloody reign of Macbeth: why?