What I didn't expect, what I wouldn't in a million years have expected, is a Pixar film that embodies a traditionalist conservative critique of modernity, one that advocates a more or less Aristotelian view of humanity and politics. Philosophically, this is one of the most subversive movies I've ever seen. Crunchy cons, this movie is for us.
He goes on to give a great critique of the film (with some spoilers, so beware!), and I'm anxious to see it after his review. There is an ongoing discussion going on over there, so be sure to visit Rod's main site if this interests you.
In other happenings, there is a great article, entitled A Life Worth Living, about the life and recent passing of Harriet McBryde Johnson.
Ms. Johnson, a lawyer, first earned national attention when she debated philosopher Peter Singer at Princeton University in 2003, an experience she wrote about for the New York Times Magazine. Thankfully free of the ponderous cant that infects so much of bioethics, she was brutally direct when she talked about disabilities, including her own. "Most people don't know how to look at me," she wrote, describing her severely twisted spine and her "jumble of bones in a floppy bag of skin." But she abhorred the "veneer of beneficence" that overlay the arguments of those who said she would be "better off" without her disability. "The presence or absence of a disability doesn't predict quality of life," she argued, challenging Mr. Singer's support of what she called "disability-based infanticide."To read the entire click here.Ms. Johnson forced us to look at disability in a different way -- not as something that we should seek to eradicate, but as something that is integral to the human condition, a "natural part of the human experience," as the American Association of People With Disabilities puts it.
h/t Amy Welborn for the link
