Author Archives: egoldstein

The first flâneur. Opium was Thomas De Quincy’s nemesis. It prevented him from writing. Then he made addiction his subject… more»

Wine and wit. From Falstaff’s tavern underworld to drunken delusions in The Tempest to Cassio’s intoxication in Othello, alcohol aids drama – Shakespeare’s, at least… more»

“When the guns talk,” goes a proverb, “the muses fall silent.” Nonsense. War stimulates creativity and a desire for cultural reassurance. The Great War was the great exception… more»

High culture was concerned with truth. Now it propagates nonsense. Fake ideas have replaced real ones; fake intellectuals have supplanted genuine scholars… more»

There are certain words that pry open our imaginations and make us think about things otherwise ignored. For Robert Fulford, “palimpsest” is one such word… more»

Pleasure is the beach, a new sweater, a pineapple Popsicle. Joy is dropping Ecstasy, falling in love, having children. Zadie Smith parses the distinction… more»

Culture once meant intellectual heights and aesthetic ideals. Now it means petty entertainment. Mario Vargas Llosa and Gilles Lipovetsky explain… more»

Scientists once mocked the pretentious, omniscient claims of philosophical positivists. Now scientism is guilty of the same folly… more»

Hunter-gatherers, esoteric cults, revolutionary brigades: We’ve always had a capacity for in-group imitation. And we are as ritualistic today as we’ve ever been… more»

Marcel Duchamp was ambivalent, even embarrassed, about producing art. He was in search of a medium untainted by aesthetics. He was, in short, a Romantic… more»