Новости за 29.07.2016

Motherhood is under-represented in literature and almost entirely absent from philosophy — an “odd omission, given how many people in the history of the world have either had a baby or been one”. High time to give motherhood its due as a great part of human life. Philosophers “should look to pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting as an opportunity to think deeply about the distinction between self and other, the relation between body and mind, the meaning of being or of life itself”

Once past the opening lines, which dismiss a new biography nominally under review, what follows is a marvellous sketch of Liszt: “His recitals required two pianos, as the first was likely to be destroyed in performance. We can only guess at the effects of his playing, but the music he was writing in the 1830s and 1840s gives a sense of his boldness. The sonorities are extraordinary, the demands on the player still terrifying today. Even Liszt had to retreat from some of the challenges he mounted”

Anthropologist discusses recent books on methods and ethics of drones. “We saw in the Iraq war that people were largely happy until Americans started coming back in body bags. Then they said George Bush had been an idiot. We wouldn’t have had the turning of American opinion if it hadn’t been for the 4,000 Americans who died. They were hostages of the democratic war-making process. Drones have broken that link in the chain. They make possible perpetual war without costs”

How Islamic State selects and trains children as fighters. Some arrive from abroad with their parents, some are kidnapped, many are born locally. More than 31,000 women are currently pregnant in IS-held territory. Islamic State hosts receptions at which “children are given sweets and little boys are allowed to hold an IS flag”. In schools and closed camps they study Islam, mathematics, bomb-making and weaponry. “Later they practice beheading with blond dolls dressed in orange jumpsuits”

Profile of J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy, about growing up poor in Appalachia. “He describes how his mother got pregnant at 18, was divorced by 19 and remarried four times”. His grandmother was “a caring but tough woman who once set his grandfather on fire after he came home drunk one night”. Vance credits his grandparents, religion and the Marine Corps for setting him straight. He graduated Yale Law School, and is now a venture capitalist. “It feels like my spaceship crash-landed in Oz”