Is the Dow Jones Industrial Average a good indicator of the state of the American economy? Not really, says Alexis Madrigal: “There is a nostalgic comfort in thinking that the same single number, composed of a potpourri of well-known companies nominally headquartered in this country, represent the American role in the massively complex, globalized economy.”
The philosopher Stanley Cavell has died. Christopher Benfey remembers him in The New York Review of Books: “He was a jazz musician before he was a philosopher. An air of improvisation and fun hung over everything he did…He didn’t prepare a syllabus. He didn’t order books for his courses. He was casual with student papers. According to the awful assessment measures of our awful times, he was probably a lousy teacher, and yet he was the most exciting classroom presence I’ve ever experienced.”
