Our gawker culture
Suddenly the Net lit up with headlines news: celebrity nude photos leaked! Videos too! Facebook timelines were replete with media stories. Shock. Horror. Voyeurism. Click, click, click the viewers racked…
Ian Chadwick
Classical music matters even more today
The official launch of the new Classical FM 102.9 radio station in Collingwood this past weekend reminded me of my own past history with classical music, but also why it…
Coffee with Cicero
Can you imagine what it would be like today to be able to meet the Roman philosopher, Cicero, for coffee and spend an hour chatting? Or meeting up at a…
Translating Montaigne
With two printed versions of Montaigne’s essays (translations by Donald Frame and M. A. Screech) and a couple of online editions available to me, I thought I might offer some…
Common Sense
When men yield up the exclusive privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon. Thomas Paine, 18th century political activist and political philosopher, wrote that line. It…
Thirty years later…
In his book of aphorisms, Human, All Too Human, Friedrich Nietzsche described “marriage as a long conversation” like this: When entering a marriage, one should ask the question: do you…
Sex, violence and TV shows
We just finished watching the third season of Game of Thrones on DVD this past weekend. Before that, we watched The White Queen, another DVD series (one season only, although…
Green initiatives for next term
Collingwood should be in the forefront for green initiatives in Ontario, not lagging behind. There’s no reason we should not be leaders in exploring new ways to reduce greenhouse gases,…
Taoist Lessons for Politicians
Those who look down upon this world, will surely take hold and try to change things. So begins verse 29 of the 4th century BCE Chinese classic (Jonathan Star translation*),…
Sonnet 103
Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth, So begins Shakespeare’s sonnet number 103 (I started rereading the sonnets recently because, well because it’s Shakespeare, damn it all, and what other…
Machiavelli and Xenophon
Another piece posted on The Municipal Machiavelli this week; this time a short comment about Machiavelli and Xenophon, the ancient Greek writer who Niccolo referred to in The Prince and…
How to Run a Country
I’ve posted a review of Philip Freeman’s book, How to Run a Country on the Municipal Machiavelli site, here: ianchadwick.com/machiavelli/how-to-run-a-country/ Freeman’s work is a short (132 pages in a small…
Montaigne’s cat and Descartes’ reality
“When I play with my cat,” wrote French philosopher and essayist, Michel de Montaigne, “Who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.*” That…
Social media and social dialogue
A recent poll done by Pew Research reiterated what I’ve been saying for the past two years: social media (SM) doesn’t necessary facilitate social debate and in fact may be…
Looking forward to 2015-18
Looking forward to 2015 and beyond, here are some of the things I would like to see Collingwood Council and the town staff accomplish in the upcoming term. I have…
Tricks of the mind
Reading involves bit of trickery. Mental trickery. It engages the imagination and fools us into thinking we are there within the book: nestled beside the author, or better yet, beside…
Ontario’s liquor sales conundrum
The C.D. Howe Institute released its report on beer and wine sales in Ontario, today, advocating for a more liberal approach and allowing beer and wine to be sold in…
The Beginning of the End
Sixty years ago, the end began. It would take almost a full year for the Allies to batter the Third Reich into submission, but in the summer of 1944, the…
Gut instincts
A story on Science Daily says research suggests our so-called “free will” may be less free than we ever imagined. We may, instead, be meat puppets ruled by the desires…
Great books: the academic view
In the mid-1990s, journalist David Denby took on a personal challenge to return to Columbia University for a year to take two courses, both focused on reading the “great books”…