Nation

On Diversity and Tolerance: James Fitzjames Stephen vs John Stuart Mill

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First of the Month readers might not warm to a Victorian criminal lawyer and judge who believed that law and morals were inseparably linked and for whom capital punishment was the bedrock of an effective system of justice. Offenders would emerge from the court presided over by James Fitzjames Stephen (1829-94) with their character in shreds and facing either a long and harsh period of incarceration, or the gallows.  The judge, Stephen believed, was merely the servant of the public’s sense of righteous indignation, and was duty bound not to disappoint.

However, law enforcement was only the day job for Stephen; he doubled as a prolific and combative writer who waded into every controversy – political, literary, theological, and scientific – that unsettled his age. He has recently featured in Russell Jacoby’s perceptive book, On diversity: the eclipse of the individual in a global age, as the robust critic of John Stuart Mill.

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Suck it the Fuck Up

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Kristi Coulter posted the following resonant comments on Facebook after RBG’s passing…

Quick Q for all the straight, non-disabled white guys who are posting “RIP America” and “Here comes Gilead” and otherwise rolling over and playing dead tonight: what’s it like to be so fucking weak?

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Stanley Crouch & The All-American Skin Game

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Late in his life Amiri Baraka once mused that he knew he was old because he’d begun to feel sad when his enemies died.  Their obits reminded him of passionate struggles in his past and made the present seem like a diminished thing.  Baraka didn’t outlive Stanley Crouch but I bet he’d’ve felt bummed to know another one of his contras had split. In the case of Crouch, though, Baraka’s sadness might’ve been deepened since Crouch offered him more than an olive branch before both of them departed.

Not that cultural powers-that-be took that in…

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