Content & Context
The Books & Culture Weblog
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WEEKLY DIGEST
- "Disgust is both powerful and pervasive in our lives, yet of all the emotions that make us human, it is surely the most neglected, and the least understood," wrote B&C editor John Wilson earlier this month in the Boston Globe's Ideas section. Recently, though, scholars' contributions have advanced a philosophy of disgust, or "disgustology," even if their questions are more useful than their answers. Bioethicist Leon Kass contends that "repugnance is the emotional expression of a deep wisdom"—a moral sensor alerting us to violations of order and goodness. Another study suggests disgust is "an evolutionary response to the threat of disease." Philosopher Martha Nussbaum sees disgust as an awareness of our animal nature, which we seek to deny by distancing ourselves from others, and from which we seek relief in (she says) fantastic notions of an all-powerful deity. As John points out, one concept she neglects is self-disgust, which, despite the self-esteem cheerleading of pop psychology, he says can be "congruent with reality" and "an indispensable engine of reform." Story
- Asia has always prized boy babies, as Chinese poetry from the first millennium B.C. shows, says the Chronicle of Higher Education. Now that sex-selective abortion or abandonment of female babies is aided by prenatal technology, the imbalance between the sexes of has grown more pronounced. But is this a threat to world peace? Two new books argue that "surplus males," minus mates, not only cause crime and social disorder, but also encourage excess militarism among governments (which figure they have plenty of male soldiers to spare). Critics say this thesis relies on masculine stereotypes and exaggerates the threat to international security. Story
- Who will win this year's presidential election? That's easy: the sunnier optimist. Candidates consider optimism to be "a political strategy" and even "a matter of patriotism," says Jonathan Chait in the Atlantic Monthly, and so they "strive to out-Pollyanna one another, laboring to maintain their smiles, never allowing a sobering thought to cloud their gaze." Story If Chait weren't a political columnist, he probably would have spent less time analyzing the political upside of optimism and devoted more space to the interesting question he poses at the end: why do we assume "that there's something inherently virtuous about optimism," especially since optimism has often been the political capital of tyrants? And given the woes in the world right now, to what extent is blithe optimism dishonest?
- Whether or not they're optimistic, church leaders often falter because they fail to conceive of their church as an organization, writes David Batstone in the weekly e-mail newsletter of Sojourners. If they did, perhaps "internal conflict and dysfunction" would give way to "intentional thought and strategy" for "maintaining the organizational integrity of the operation." Batstone says he has been surprised to hear from churches who are using his book Saving The Corporate Soul—which he wrote with for-profit corporations in mind—to help them evaluate their own methods of leadership. He identifies some of the basic leadership principles churches often fail to appreciate (including the problems with top-heavy leadership and lack of "organizational transparency"). Link While some churches may find this list helpful, it lacks the important disclaimer that a church is not just like any other corporation, and may in fact need to steer clear of some of the business terminology Batstone uses if it is going to avoid what he condemns: confusing "goals" and "values."
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