The Empathy Riddle, Punchline Aesthetics, and More

Witnessing injustice can just as easily hinder responsible political action as spur it. Top 5 Reads from Arts & Letters Daily [View this email in your browser]( Starting next week this email may look a little different, and will arrive from aldaily@substack.com. As a part of that change, you will have the option to receive Arts & Letters Daily as a daily newsletter. Interested? [Go ahead and subscribe.]( Or, sit tight, and keep an eye out for more details from us next week. Thanks for your continued support, and happy reading! -- The ALDaily Team [The Empathy Riddle]( Witnessing injustice can just as easily hinder responsible political action as spur it. --------------------------------------------------------------- [Punchline Aesthetics]( In the fiction of both Ben Lerner and Sheila Heti, artists fall comically flat. But such “punchline aesthetics” are culturally elite and racially coded. --------------------------------------------------------------- [The New Mob Justice]( Intellectual life is now policed by a new mob justice. If you make a mistake, expect punishment and ostracism - not forgiveness. --------------------------------------------------------------- [Whither Honesty?]( “The news that a well-known study on dishonesty was based on a lie is, as ironies go, almost too perfect.” --------------------------------------------------------------- [Proust's Panmnemonicon]( Is reading all seven volumes of In Search of Lost Time a way of merely renouncing the wider world? Copyright © 2021 Arts and Letters Daily, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you signed up at Our mailing address is: Arts and Letters Daily 1255 Twenty-Third St, N.W.washington, DC 20037 [Add us to your address book]( [unsubscribe from this list]( [update subscription preferences](