The New Criterion
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The MediaA couple of years ago, I bought a Dell computer. Almost every day since then, I have received one or more spam emails from Dell offering to sell me something else. As I write, the latest one is titled: “We have unreal deals. You only have three business days.” Why should Dell think I would be interested in an unreal deal? There used to be a saying that somebody or something was “the real deal.” Now should we say instead “the unreal deal”? And if, as I suspect, “unreal” is just an ironic superlative—so good that it seems unreal, or too good to be true—what then becomes of St. Anselm’s Ontological Proof of the existence of God, which holds that no Being with the attributes of God could exist without also having the attribute of reality? Maybe, on the contrary, God is all the more perfect for not being real, or not seeming so. But then it wasn’t long ago that a learned man told me Ans ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 31 November 2012, on page 60 Copyright © 2013 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Get-real-7483
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by James Bowman The fallout from Britain's phone-hacking scandal has now led to government regulation of the media and an ominous future for free speech in the West. by James Bowman Bob Woodward backtracks on his criticism of the White House and the Obama administration jokes with the compliant media. by James Bowman On streaking, the Super Bowl, the Grammys, and women in combat. by James Bowman On the fiscal cliff and Herb Stein's tautology, “If something can’t go on forever, it won’t.”
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