Despite everything we are seeing in the news, the concept of truth (and “the truth”) is central to critical thinking, to liberal learning, and to democratic citizenship. And despite all my past efforts to suggest how complicated the concept of truth is, sometimes it isn’t. Some things just are, or are not, the case, and it degrades the very idea of truth to debate them. Who won the 2020 election, for example. 

How should we think about time?  Are there any parameters that we could identify as “critical temporal thinking”?  I’m talking here about human time as opposed to spacetime, which is the real astrophysical thing from Einstein onward. We can let physicists deal with that one. 

The play “Giant” by Mark Rosenblatt , now running at the Music Box Theater in New York, combines a big-name writer as its subject (Roald Dahl), a weighty topic (antisemitism), and a brilliant star in the leading role (John Lithgow). It’s directed by the great Nicholas Hytner. It can’t miss – and it doesn’t. The man, the topic, and the star turn by Lithgow are all enthralling.