"In Truth, However, They Are Its Unlikeliest Allies"

"Antifa's perceived legitimacy is inversely correlated with the government's. Which is why, in the Trump era, the movement is growing like never before. As the president derides and subverts liberal-democratic norms, progressives face a choice. They can recommit to the rules of fair play, and try to limit the president's corrosive effect, though they will often fail. Or they can, in revulsion or fear or righteous rage, try to deny racists and Trump supporters their political rights. From Middlebury to Berkeley to Portland, the latter approach is on the rise, especially among young people."

Peter Beinart at The Atlantic discusses the rise of "antifa."

As does Bob Moser at the New Republic.

"An Indigenous Creation"

"Today, deconstructive habits of mind within the academy are largely considered not so much controversial as passé. Still, there remains the question of how and why the deconstructive tradition became such a formidable pattern of thought in the United States. To answer that question, Americans might—in an ironic twist—consider the February 2014 protests in France against the legalization of same-sex marriage. Those protestors objected to the equality advanced by the new grade school pedagogy ostensibly inspired by American gender theory, above all that of deconstructionist Judith Butler. 'La théorie du genre,' according to French protestors, originated on the other side of the Atlantic. We might also consider why, as Fredric Jameson noted in 2015, Americans tend to believe the 'good tidings' of theory—including deconstruction—were brought from Europe, while Chinese literary scholars, say, consider theory an American invention. These perceptions of the origin and flow of ideas should give pause to those who consider deconstruction essentially French."

Gregory Jones-Katz in the Boston Review asserts that "deconstructive literary theory was largely" an American phenomenon.

"May God Bless the Memory of the Victims"

"As a country, we have been through this too many times.  Whether it's an elementary school in Newtown, or a shopping mall in Oregon, or a temple in Wisconsin, or a movie theater in Aurora, or a street corner in Chicago--these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children.  And we're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics."

The New York Times publishes President Obama's statement following the mass shooting in Connecticut.

And The Huffinton Post adds Obama's remarks two days later in Newtown.

Taking Tiger Mother (By Strategy)

"What makes reacting to this book so complicated is that many Chinese-Americans will, I think, recognize aspects of Chua's story from their own childhoods: The importance of academic achievement, the expectation of a certain level of self-discipline, the closeness (if not always warmth) between parents and children. Even if I find her cultural analysis eye-roll-worthy, I can't deny that. Nor would I want to—shared experiences and frames of reference are what make a community a community. I just hope that people realize that Chua's personal account is just that—one Chinese woman's individual story."

Nina Shen Rastogi in Slate criticizes Amy Chua, author of the new memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, excerpted in The Wall Street Journal.

And Bad Mother author Ayelet Waldman ponders Chua.

Throwing Stones

"In The Philip Johnson Tapes, Johnson recounts that in the mid-1950s, he invited Mies, with whom he was collaborating on the Seagram Building, for an overnight visit. At 10:30 in the evening, Mies emerged from the nearby guesthouse and told his host that he wanted to leave. Johnson thought he was joking. 'I don't think you understood,' responded Mies. 'I'm not staying in this house another minute, and you've got to find me a place to stay.' What had upset the German architect? 'I just think he felt that my bad copy of his work was extremely unpleasant,' Johnson later speculated."

In honor of the building's sixtieth anniversary Witold Rybczynski in Slate visits Philip Johnson's Glass House.

Sweet Isolation

Douglas Martin in The New York Times reports the death of William F. Buckley, Jr.

Thin-Crust, Thick-Crust, Stuffed, or...?

Adam Kuban delineates the regional types of pizza on Slice.

The Heart Is a Little to the Left

"For his ruggedly handsome, engagingly flawed, humane if not always lawful behavior, he inspired the Doonesbury comic strip character, the Rev. Scot Sloan. In the late 1960s, after the most heated battles of the desegregation movement had passed, U.S. involvement in Vietnam escalated and Coffin took on the war as his issue. While his colleagues at Yale had supported him through the civil rights era, his popularity there waned during the Vietnam conflict."

The Los Angeles Times explores the life of the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., who died yesterday at age 81.

Slate runs an appreciation by Mark Oppenheimer.