James Schmidt

@persistenlight

Professor of History, Philosophy, and Political Science at Boston University & Friend of the Enlightenment. Tweets do not reflect the views of either.

Boston, MA
PersistentEnlightenment.com
Joined November 2011
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  1. Aug 2

    Art Goldhammer, “What Is Freedom?” | The Nation

    1 retweet 1 like
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  2. Aug 1

    Perhaps he’s been reading Melville’s Bartleby?

    Here is the upshot of what Flake is doing: Mitch McConnell kept the Senate in session in August (instead of recessing), so they could confirm Trump's judicial nominees, but Flake took his own recess for most of August. He's on judiciary, so now they can't confirm the judges.
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  3. Retweeted
    Jul 18

    The Massachusetts House just voted to protect access to safe abortions and reproductive health care by removing outdated and unconstitutional laws from our books.

    193 replies 2,355 retweets 8,025 likes
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  4. Retweeted
    Jul 18

    “Our black Socrates, roaming the philosophical streets, asking people why they think a society stained by a history of racial horrors, is not more ashamed, to demand a reckoning w/ liberalism’s weaknesses & limitations is also an effort to save liberalism”

    1 reply 2 retweets 2 likes
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  5. Jul 18

    Spent the afternoon rereading Fania Oz-Salzberger, “New Approaches towards a History of the Enlightenment - Can Disparate Perspectives Make a General Picture?,” Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für Deutsche Geschichte XXIX (2000). Anyone interested in the Enlightenment should do the same!

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  6. Retweeted
    Jul 18

    Great moments in Congressional testimony, 1949 edition. (Executive Session, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, 23 August 1949.)

    1 reply 8 retweets 24 likes
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  7. Jul 16

    Thanks! This helps explain why, for reasons I couldn't quite fathom, I spent the day unpacking my library.

    It's Walter Benjamin's birthday! Celebrate by gathering up in your writing the fragments of modern experience, by confronting the disaster that is capitalism triumphant, by writing to a dear friend, and by not replicating the mistakes of his disastrous personal life.
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  8. Jul 14

    Trump and the Return of Divine Right via

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  9. Jul 14

    There is an odd eloquence in Asst. Attny. General Rod Rosenstein’s reference to “the grace, dignity, and unity of the American people.” It’s not the sort of language we are used to hearing from members of this administration.

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  10. Jul 13

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  11. Jul 10

    I suspect that it’s a consequence of wishful thinking.

    On land, I tend to err in the other direction.
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  12. Jul 10

    On land, I tend to err in the other direction.

    In the sea, under certain circumstances, seals have more than once been mistaken for men.
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  13. Jul 3

    Now more than ever it’s time for Bentham!

    8 retweets 16 likes
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  14. Jun 30

    Boston calling....

    1 retweet 5 likes
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  15. Jun 28

    Scott Lemieux writes, "One thing I can assure Justice Kennedy is that he will not be remembered as a staunch opponent of authoritarianism."

    A Man In Anthony Kennedy’s Position Can Afford to be Made to Look Ridiculous by Scott Lemieux
    1 retweet 1 like
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  16. Retweeted
    Jun 19

    Here's what is happening: the Trump administration took 2500 kids as hostages and now congress is negotiating the ransom.

    1,544 replies 20,760 retweets 49,506 likes
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  17. Retweeted
    Jun 17

    Like many, I've resisted using this word but it's time: the deliberate and unnecessary separation of innocent children from their parents is pure evil. It does not come from God or from any genuinely moral impulse. It is wantonly cruel and targets the most vulnerable. 1/

    990 replies 21,374 retweets 58,652 likes
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  18. Retweeted
    Jun 19

    Since the president is lying about this, I'll reiterate that we obtained internal CBP documents that show that ****91%**** of parents whose kids are taken away are being prosecuted for misdemeanor FIRST TIME entry.

    1,136 replies 47,484 retweets 100,093 likes
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  19. Jun 20

    Events on the southern border have dislodged Bruce Cockburn's "If I Had a Rocket Launcher" (1984) from wherever it had been hiding in my brain. As Cockburn later explained, it's a cry, not a call to arms, which makes that final verse even harder to shake.

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  20. Jun 20

    Catching up on Marius Strubenhoff's novel take on the "Positivism Dispute" — “The Positivism Dispute in German Sociology, 1954–1970,” History of European Ideas 44:2 (2018): 260–76.

    4 likes
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