“We tend to think of aesthetic disputes as reflecting the least substantive differences between people—you like vanilla, I like chocolate, there’s no arguing over taste, let’s move on. But that point of view may be infected by the wishful thinking of backwards argumentation: given that there is no arguing over taste, those differences had better be unimportant. What if some of them are not?” – The Point
Tag: 08.19
In Praise Of The Civic Plaza
You sit in a plaza and it occurs to you that other people have been in your situation, whatever it is, and this knowledge is at the heart of civility. There are no answers, only stories—the answers keep changing, the stories stay the same for centuries. – Harper’s
Study Suggests We’re No Busier Than We Used To Be
The authors find little proof of increasing busyness among the population. Yes, as expected, people were spending far more time on digital devices in 2015 than they were in 2000. But the data provides little evidence that people now spend more time multitasking or that they’re switching more often from one activity to another, which might make our time seem fragmented and frantic. – Literary Review
Skills Versus Knowledge: Are We Teaching Kids The Wrong Way?
What if the best way to boost reading comprehension is not to drill kids on discrete skills but to teach them, as early as possible, the very things we’ve marginalized—including history, science, and other content that could build the knowledge and vocabulary they need to understand both written texts and the world around them? – The Atlantic