Month: October 2013

Philip Roth’s novels were very important to the early thinking that eventually led to the book I’m writing Civilization and Its Discontents, mostly because I disagreed with so much of what his works seemed to imply about the tension between sexual desire and family life. (In making that argument, Roth was, of course, carrying on in the long Augustinian tradition I criticize, particularly in it’s Freudian version, although Roth is in many ways a critic of Freud.) It occurred to me to re-read some of Roth’s books, as I near the end of this project and I’ve discovered two things. One is that there are many more voices in Roth’s work than I saw when I first read him. The second is something that I’ve always known, reading Roth is an immense pleasure–so many wonderful lines, carefully constructed and beautiful sentences and paragraphs, clever but not obtrusive plots, and a… Continue reading

The liquor store privatization issue is really a good test of whether you know what you are talking about when it comes to progressive politics in our state. If you support privatization then you don’t understand that: 1. There is no progressive power in this country that isn’t based in a strong labor movement. A middle class highly educated person who tells you he is a progressive but doesn’t understand what UFCW has meant to the politics of this state needs a graduate degree from the school of real politics. 2. That there is no middle class that doesn’t require government action to increase the wages of working people and that well paid public sector workers benefits all workers. 3. That our unique system means that PA’s take from liquor and wine sales is at least double that of any other state in the country and that we can’t end… Continue reading