Sex Wars     The divorce rate had reached a new high: 92% of people were now getting divorced. Those who stubbornly remained married were looked on with suspicion tinged with envy. Meanwhile the sexual allegation rate had skyrocketed: four out of five men had been accused of some form of sexual […]

      Inhuman Philosophy     Has philosophy become inhuman? Is that why it has lost its prestige and popularity? Is it doomed by its inhumanness? Or is it perhaps not inhuman enough? Is it just not scientific, merely a parade of personal opinion and undisciplined subjectivity? Must we reunite philosophy with the humanities […]

No doubt it is a good thing that questions of sexual harassment are being aired, but I found Daphne Merkin’s op-ed piece in the NY Times today salutary. It ends thus: “These are scary times, for women as well as men. There is an inquisitorial whiff in the air, and my particular fear is that […]

      The Murder of Quilty     The enthralled and stricken reader of Lolita reaches chapter 35 of the book, the penultimate chapter, in a tragic state of mind, weeping hot tears. This is the chapter in which Clare Quilty is brutally murdered by a drunk and deranged Humbert Humbert. Yet the chapter […]