It’s short. About 50 pages. I don’t agree with everything she says because, despite her interlocutor and friend being homosexual, she makes a few homophobic comments. I chose this book because it’s witty and fun, it raises some fundamental questions about the nature of love, and also it’s a fascinating insight into society at the time.
Originally asked
Vox, to writers and thinkers, 9 Questions, 2017
Vox used this as one of nine fixed questions in its 2017 series on intellectual habits.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Sophie Roell, Five Books interview, published transcript, 24 May 2021 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 26 →The National Review, on occasion. An attempt to understand the brain wiring of as many points of view as I can.
Frank Henderson Stewart is a very distinguished scholar, now retired, an expert on the ancient Near East, but he thought deeply about honour. He read ancient texts and legal documents because, as you know, honour is a legal concept in German law and you can seek to have your honour protected in various ways – it’s sort of what they have instead of libel. Analysing and thinking deeply about it, he tries to understand how honour developed, and it was he who led me to see the core thought, which is that honour is an entitlement to respect, and that what honour codes do is say how you get to be entitled to respect. I disagree with a lot of what he says – in particular that he wants to give up on honour because it has such negative connotations: I think it needs reform as a concept – but I think it’s a very lovely piece of scholarly analysis.
I disagree with virtually everything I’ve ever seen on Fox News, but I watch it anyway.
More on attention & the world
Also answered this
Massimo Pigliucci, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Lisa Randall, Paul Thagard, Bill Nye, Sarah Perry
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All attention & the world questions
- The 9 Questions questionnaire — 5 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject