means of fees or taxes.
Hahn and Stavins say they are "bullish" on the use of economic incentives but still think they will remain limited. EPA bu- reaucrats, environmentalists, and others have a great deal invested in the status quo. Even industry lobbyists in Washing- ton display a "curious resistance" to mar- ket-oriented reforms. Like their oppo- nents, their stock-in-trade is manipulation of the existing system; new rules for play- ing the game are a threat (and might,...
Paul Johnson, in National Review (June 10,
1991), 150 East 35th St., New York, N.Y. 10016.
Percy Bysshe Shelley in 182 1 called poets "the unacknowledged legislators of the world." But Ludwig van Beethoven (1770- 1827) had already staked out a similar claim on behalf of a genuinely lowly group: musicians. In fact, it was Beetho- ven, according to journalist-historian Johnson, who "first established and popu- larized the notion of the artist as universal genius, as a moral figure...
John Stratton Hawley
induism-the word, the conception are not altogether clear.
and perhaps the reality One heard of the "goodly habits and obser-
too-was born in the vances of Hindooism" in a Bengali-English
19th century, a notori-grammar written in 1829, and the Rever-
ously illegitimate child. end William Tennant had spoken of "the
The father was middle- Hindoo system" in a book on Indian man- class and British, and the mother, of ners and history written at the beginning...
induism-the word, the conception are not altogether clear.
and perhaps the reality One heard of the "goodly habits and obser-
too-was born in the vances of Hindooism" in a Bengali-English
19th century, a notori-grammar written in 1829, and the Rever-
ously illegitimate child. end William Tennant had spoken of "the
The father was middle- Hindoo system" in a book on Indian man- class and British, and the mother, of ners and history written at the beginning of course, was...
Of all the world's religious traditions, none has been more closely scrutinized for its fis- sures than "Hinduism." Put simply, it is now fashionable to argue that there is no such thing.
Two prominent scholars, Wilfred Cantwell Smith and Robert E. Frykenberg, have been instrumental in establishing the idea that it was not just the history of Hindu- ism that was invented by outsiders but its very identity. It is worth looking at the work of Smith and Frykenberg to see whether the idea...
"But it isn't a Hedgehog, and it isn't a Tortoise" [said the young Painted Jaguar]. "It's a little bit of both, and I don't know its proper name."
"Nonsense!" said Mother Jaguar. "Everything has its proper name. I should call it 'Armadillo' till I found out the real one. And I should leave it alone."
-Rudyard Kipling, "The Beginning of the Arma- dillos," in Just So Stories (1902).
ipling is one of the most den of being White Men is what hobbles...
t was an amazing spectacle, and
one could have witnessed it almost
anywhere in India. In 1989, from
every comer of the country Hindus
set off on pilgrimages-which in it-
self would not have been so un- usual, except that every person clutched in one hand a single brick. If all those bricks were laid side by side and on top of each other, they would have made an incredible edifice, which was exactly the intention. The thousands of Hindus were on their way to Ayodhya in northem India w...
ACKGROUND BOOKS
INDUISM AND THE FATE OF INDIA
enturies ago, when Muslims classified the
nonbelievers under their rule, they used "people of the Book" to distinguish Christians and Jews from Hindus. That distinction re-mains useful, and any consideration of Hindu- ism must first confront the problem of what I might call the "booking" of Hinduism, the slow solidification of a fluid religious tradition into ink and paper, print on page. This transforma- tion from oral tradi...
Suddenly, with the collapse of communism, Karl Marx is out, Adam Smith is in. But the Adam Smith we know, the author of The Wealth of Nations (1776) and the apostle of supposedly bare- knuckled capitalism, is only half the real man. In this essay, Charles L. Griswold, Jr. describes the efforts of this erudite Scot- tish professor of moral philosophy to imagine how liberal soci- eties could devote themselves to both the pursuit of wealth and the creation of virtuous citizens. As the world rushes...
Chester E. Finn, JK
"Christine borrows $850 for one year from the Friendly Finance Company. If she pays 12%simple interest on the loan, what will be the total amount that Christine repays?"
hat is not the sort of ques-
tion that ought to stump
many people. Yet accord-
ing to the National Assess-
ment of Educational
Progress, in 1988 only six percent of the nation's 1 lth graders were able to solve mathematical problems at this moderate level of difficulty. Six out of 100. After...