In my recent conversation with Evangelical and multi-faith expert John Morehead, I asked him if, while having conversations with people he has strong disagreements with, he ever feels complicit in enabling beliefs that he feels are harmful or destructive to society. His answer is worth reproducing in full (edited for clarity):
Continue reading “Resist Purity”
For the past few weeks on the blog, I’ve been discussing the importance of reading challenging texts. “Challenging” covers a broad range of books — it can mean books you hate, books you don’t enjoy, books that you are ideologically opposed to, or books that are worth reading but hard to get through.
Continue reading “Mitch Horowitz on Reading Great Occult Texts”
Last week I explored why I believe reading challenging and controversial books is a beneficial practice — a skill I’m calling resilient reading. After publishing that post, though, I realized it might be worth exploring some disciplines that make resilient reading tenable.
Continue reading “The Art of Resilient Reading”
I’ve been reading J.K. Rowling’s Cormoran Strike series (written under the pen name Robert Galbraith), and it’s ignited some reflections on one of my long-standing obsessions: reading literature deemed harmful, problematic, or dangerous. In my circles, reading anything by J.K. Rowling is fraught. In the aftermath of her public stances on trans people, a generation of readers are now re-examining her books and legacy. Mentioning that I’m reading J.K. Rowling inevitably generates exasperated sighs, eye rolls, or outright hostility.
Continue reading “J.K. Rowling and Resilient Reading”
I’ve gotten some interesting criticisms of my recent series of blog posts on the importance of reading challenging and problematic literature. The most common is along these lines: “you can get information that is just as good from non-problematic sources, so why not just do that?”
Continue reading “Books Aren’t Search Engines”
Several months ago, I had a meditation experience the likes of which I’d never had before. The instructor advised me to take note of the feeling of being a subject looking at an object. He then said, “look for the one who is looking. Turn awareness upon itself, and look for the subject who is perceiving the object.”
Continue reading “There is Only Consciousness: On Minority Experience and Universal Humanity”
Stephen Bradford Long 