The third wave of feminism

By Nathan Bloom / May 29, 2009

Feminists would be wise to look at women’s rights as human rights.

Inhuman nature

By Nathan Bloom / May 1, 2009

Torture is wrong not because it is spiritually degrading, but because it is physically harmful.

Stirring the soul

By Nathan Bloom / April 17, 2009

Politics must be based on rational analysis instead of instinctive character assessments.

The justification for justice

By Nathan Bloom / April 7, 2009

Pro-Palestine arguments are based on incorrect assumptions about fairness.

The right fit

By Nathan Bloom / March 6, 2009

Employers should look beyond superficial qualities in hiring staff.

Working in theory

By Nathan Bloom / February 20, 2009

Theory provides the context for moral distinctions between different actions

The banality of torture

By Nathan Bloom / February 6, 2009

Putting torture into the mainstream is not bad, since it reminds us just how common the practice actually is

Inspiration without perspiration

By Nathan Bloom / January 23, 2009

There are enough role models out there—it’s time to stop admiring and start emulating

Rushing into peace

By Nathan Bloom / January 9, 2009

A reckless peace, just like a reckless war, will benefit neither party

Long divisions ahead

By Nathan Bloom / November 11, 2008

Obama’s message of unity serves only to alienate those not subscribing

Give a little bit

By Nathan Bloom / October 31, 2008

We cheat ourselves if we don’t give at least a few cents, wallet permitting, to every beggar we encounter.

Honorable mention

By Nathan Bloom / October 17, 2008

While honor can be a proud banner in the hands of the truly noble, it is all too often a sorry defense used by those for whom real virtue is too troublesome to be bothered with.

Honorable mention

By Nathan Bloom / October 17, 2008

While honor can be a proud banner in the hands of the truly noble, it is all too often a sorry defense used by those for whom real virtue is too troublesome to be bothered with.

There is an “i-banking” in team

By Nathan Bloom / October 7, 2008

Public virtue is increasingly, and disturbingly, substituted for private morality.

Sacrificing substance

By Nathan Bloom / October 4, 2008

Either Obama is cynically exploiting for political gain Americans’ frustration about their government’s passivity in the face of monstrous evil, or he fundamentally misunderstands the role of a leader in a republic.

Modeling the phoenix

By Nathan Bloom / June 3, 2008

Nothing could be more foreign to the ethos of the University than to suggest that the progress of a student can be measured by how close he is to graduation.

Yes, I can

By Nathan Bloom / May 12, 2008

[img id=”80602″ align=”alignleft”] My wallet used to hold, along with my “organ donor” driver’s license, my credit card–sized Democratic voter registration card from the state of Pennsylvania. That way, if I died suddenly in some horrific car crash, at least everyone would know that I cared about the poor. Preposterous? Of course. Rooting for the...

He’s no messiah

By Nathan Bloom / April 7, 2008

[img id=”80443″ align=”alignleft”] David Cardero was prophetic when, in early 2007, he put his life-sized sculpture of Barack Obama depicted as Jesus on display at the Art Institute of Chicago. The messianic overtones of Senator Obama’s campaign have since led some to see Obama as a modern-day Jesus, who, in Cardero’s words, “is sort of...

The divine right of King

By Nathan Bloom / January 18, 2008

As Martin Luther King Day approaches, it is worth remembering that King’s belief in the justice of civil disobedience, the cornerstone of his precious legacy, was once unthinkable. While it is obvious to us that there are just laws we must obey and unjust laws we should sometimes flout, the idea that conscience and not...

Road to hell paved with Nobels

By Nathan Bloom / November 9, 2007

It is revealing that in 1938, Adolf Hitler was on the shortlist of the Nobel Peace Prize committee. Before faulting the committee for its lunacy, however, it’s worth keeping in mind that a dangerous shortsightedness is built into the very institution of the Prize. It is thus profoundly troubling that so many commentators in the...

As it stands, Core off the Marx

By Nathan Bloom / October 18, 2007

“The position or self-affirmation and self-confirmation contained in the negation of the negation is taken to be a position which is not yet sure of itself, which is therefore burdened with its opposite, which is doubtful of itself and therefore in need of proof, and which, therefore, is not a position establishing itself by its...