Ethan E. Brown

Superstition on Trial

Revisado: 10-13-22

Ichabod Crane is the presented as someone who ought to know better. Educated and nearly penitential with his students, he should know that spirits and witches and all such supernatural things are naught but fancy. But he doesn’t.

He is also the villain of his tale. He is weak and cowardly, and still presumptuous. He is not able to pay his own way, but is a glutton. He dreams of great riches, but not by gumption and no how, but by seduction. To the American frontiersman, he is despicable.

But Irving says more than he knows. Because there is, in Irving’s mind, less in this world than is dreamt of in his philosophy. Any supernatural belief is a sign of weakness and foolishness. Which says a lot more about the world as Irving imagined it than about the world in which he actually lived.

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Lots of Guess Work

Revisado: 02-26-22

The author does an awful lot of “we don’t know but it was probably like this, maybe.” Even with that, it’s a fascinating and more than a little spooky story of how close we came to nuclear annihilation during the Cold War.

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Don’t Judge a Book by It’s Title

Revisado: 11-18-21

This book was really fun to hear, and Tucker Carlson is a great journalist. This collection of journalistic essays is excellent, particularly for anyone over 45 who has both memory and emotion connected to these events. It is nostalgic to encounter the past as it was when it was still the present. Like reading primary sources of history, rather than the interpretation of a historian.

The only weakness is the title of the book. While it may be obvious to the author that these essays demonstrate just how much America has changed over time, that wasn’t obvious to this reader. I would have liked more cultural contrast in the introduction to each essay. He might have pointed out how “that was then, but this is now” a bit more than he does. In fact, with the exception of the introduction, he doesn’t do this at all.

What I expected was a series of contrasts that his pieces of journalism would obviously demonstrate. Here is what it was like then, but it isn’t that way now. Instead, it reads more like a survey of the world that was without reference to the world that is. The concept of long slide suggests the unplanned deterioration and decline of a society, and I expected to see that demonstrated. I suppose my own mind can do the work, but Carlson hasn’t helped in this regard as much as I expected.

These are delightful bits. I really enjoyed them. Having Tucker Carlson read them himself is worth the experience. Just not quite what I had hoped for and expected.

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Children Make Great Heroes

Revisado: 08-18-21

This is an excellent work. Not typical King, though increasingly I am coming to think that there is no “typical” for him. It’s not creepy crawly spooky, though it is disturbing.

What is typical is King’s masterly production of characters. People, not props. These people are real enough to sweat and bleed and leave you feeling terrified for them or of them. None of them are anything less that entirely full and rich with personhood that seems more observed than invented. King is the master of real characters, and you don’t have to care whether or not they have an arch. They are so real that literary concerns drop away, and you’re walking with friends and enemies.

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Delightful reading of a wonderful book

Revisado: 10-26-20

I expected an interpretation of Thomistic thought and got instead an introduction to a friend. Thomas is a delightful man, and though I have a read a bit of his writing, I did not know these stories. Great fun to meet the man and see him interpreted to a world filled with Nazis.

Derek Perkins does an excellent job reading.

I highly recommend this book.

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The Good and the Beautiful. I think. I’m not sure

Revisado: 03-09-20

Ray Childs and his interlocutor bring Socrates and Hippias to life. Childs performance as Socrates is the excellent quality I have come to expect from his many performances in the role, and the part of Hippias is performed with such excellent timing and ironic comedy that it delights! I’d be tempted to say it is a beautiful piece, though I’m no longer quite certain what I would mean by that.

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Excellent philosophy and logic

Revisado: 09-20-19

The hard logic can be hard to follow when read aloud, and might offer significant challenge to anyone who did not have some training in formal logic. But even with this caveat, the work is excellent, and when the formal logic is not too think, it is very easy to understand. The examples are engaging, and I find the arguments difficult to refute. Simply put: this is a superb work.

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Wonder and Terror Holding Hands

Revisado: 05-20-19

This is an excellent exploration of human thought about reality, and the consequences of different perspectives. The wonder of belief that there is more to this world than we can see, hear and touch is deeply explored, as is the horror of the idea that none of that is true. It is all presented through the perspectives of humanity’s greatest minds, and perhaps most distorted ones.

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A wonderful introduction to Plato

Revisado: 12-19-18

This course is very helpful to the beginning reader of Plato. Sugrue helps the read understand many subtleties that most would otherwise miss. One can tell that the professor is passionate about and delighted by his subject. Very well done.

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Excellent performances

Revisado: 08-30-18

This is how Plato is meant to be enjoyed! This brings Socrates and his Interlocutors to life! Very well done. The translation is simple and enjoyable as well. Very, very good!

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