About Me

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Australian philosopher, literary critic, legal scholar, and professional writer. Based in Newcastle, NSW. My latest books are THE TYRANNY OF OPINION: CONFORMITY AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM (2019); AT THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRANSITION: THE QUESTION OF RADICAL ENHANCEMENT (2021); and HOW WE BECAME POST-LIBERAL: THE RISE AND FALL OF TOLERATION (2024).

Saturday, February 04, 2012

Alain de Botton on that "temple" proposal

I'm still a bit unclear as to exactly what Alain de Botton has in mind - perhaps it's rather vague - but here he does a bit to set the record straight.

It does seem to be rather different from what was widely reported, and which I commented on (with a note of caution about what he was really proposing) here.

2 comments:

Svlad Cjelli said...

I'll repeat what I said elsewhere.

(( The piece tells me that he’s a dolt.

“I’m simply arguing that contemporary architecture analyse the high points of religious architecture throughout history – and that we should allow a new generation of architects to tread in the footsteps of great secular creatives indebted to the ecclesiastical, people like Kahn, Ando and Zumthor.”

Really? You believe that you are the first person who ever noticed that old houses are pretty? You believe that you have had some arcane revelation that eluded many generations of architects?

Of course, an alternate explanation is that he’s disingenuously backpedalling.

What’s more parsimonious? ))

Stuart Peace said...

Backpedalling most likely. I think he's a dolt.

I might be biased... I read 'the pleasures and sorrows of work' and I think it goes down as the worst book I've ever read. Best part was writing a review for it on amazon.