David Lay Williams
@laywilliams.bsky.social
Political theorist at DePaul and author of The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought from Plato to Marx (Princeton, 2024). Essays in NY Times, Washington Post, Time, Bloomberg, etc. Jazz Guitar, New York Mets.
What better time to celebrate the amazing contributions of immigrants to American culture? Come join me, @jgordonwright.com, @jbsinger.bsky.social, and the @chicagojazzdads.com Thursday night at Evanston Pour.
November 17, 2025 at 1:40 PM
What better time to celebrate the amazing contributions of immigrants to American culture? Come join me, @jgordonwright.com, @jbsinger.bsky.social, and the @chicagojazzdads.com Thursday night at Evanston Pour.
This showed up in the other place. I'm amused!
November 14, 2025 at 4:14 PM
This showed up in the other place. I'm amused!
Look what just arrived, @lkatfield.bsky.social! Looking forward to diving in!
November 10, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Look what just arrived, @lkatfield.bsky.social! Looking forward to diving in!
Who needs real friends so long as we have AI? (At the Davis L Station in Evanston.)
November 8, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Who needs real friends so long as we have AI? (At the Davis L Station in Evanston.)
Also, I think I understand what this is getting at, but where do we draw the line? What if a student is a Holocaust denier or a Nazi? How free should they feel to express their views?
November 4, 2025 at 7:22 PM
Also, I think I understand what this is getting at, but where do we draw the line? What if a student is a Holocaust denier or a Nazi? How free should they feel to express their views?
I think this passage is potentially problematic. For example, when I teach Henrik Ibsen's Enemy of the People, it's hard not to discuss climate change as a phenomenon parallel to what is confronted by Ibsen's 19th century Norwegian village. Because some doubt climate change, is this off-limits???
November 4, 2025 at 7:18 PM
I think this passage is potentially problematic. For example, when I teach Henrik Ibsen's Enemy of the People, it's hard not to discuss climate change as a phenomenon parallel to what is confronted by Ibsen's 19th century Norwegian village. Because some doubt climate change, is this off-limits???
Much like Alcibiades. (This account from Plutarch's Lives.)
November 1, 2025 at 9:37 PM
Much like Alcibiades. (This account from Plutarch's Lives.)
Every day is a new opportunity to be grateful for everything immigrants have brought us. One example is the Russian Jewish emigre, Irving Berlin. I could't find this song anywhere in my songbooks, so transcribed it to perform with the
@chicagojazzdads.com next month. A lovely and fitting tune.
@chicagojazzdads.com next month. A lovely and fitting tune.
October 23, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Every day is a new opportunity to be grateful for everything immigrants have brought us. One example is the Russian Jewish emigre, Irving Berlin. I could't find this song anywhere in my songbooks, so transcribed it to perform with the
@chicagojazzdads.com next month. A lovely and fitting tune.
@chicagojazzdads.com next month. A lovely and fitting tune.
It's telling that even Thrasymachus doesn't say the benefits of injustice extend to receiving direct payments of hundreds of millions of dollars from the government. He expects that unjust or tyrannical rulers would merely funnel fortunes to their friends and families. Failure of imagination.
October 21, 2025 at 8:48 PM
It's telling that even Thrasymachus doesn't say the benefits of injustice extend to receiving direct payments of hundreds of millions of dollars from the government. He expects that unjust or tyrannical rulers would merely funnel fortunes to their friends and families. Failure of imagination.
Here is something Jesus actually said. Luke 1: 51-53.
October 20, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Here is something Jesus actually said. Luke 1: 51-53.
Evanston, Illinois
October 18, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Evanston, Illinois
Okay, let’s do this!
October 18, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Okay, let’s do this!
Yesterday I posted The NY Times article on Pope Leo's Exhortation on the poor. Looking through the exhortation itself now. Here's a particularly nice passage.
October 10, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Yesterday I posted The NY Times article on Pope Leo's Exhortation on the poor. Looking through the exhortation itself now. Here's a particularly nice passage.
From Frederick Douglass’s Narrative. It’s full of passages like this. I’m thinking increasingly about the joy in which some take in inflicting pain and misery on others as a sense of domination. And I fear it explains so much.
October 2, 2025 at 4:13 PM
From Frederick Douglass’s Narrative. It’s full of passages like this. I’m thinking increasingly about the joy in which some take in inflicting pain and misery on others as a sense of domination. And I fear it explains so much.
Grateful my son has an English teacher thoughtful enough to assign works on Greek mythology including passages like this.
September 28, 2025 at 1:03 AM
Grateful my son has an English teacher thoughtful enough to assign works on Greek mythology including passages like this.
From this week’s New Yorker—on how medical students fear losing the ability to think for themselves as they use AI to diagnose.
September 27, 2025 at 5:23 PM
From this week’s New Yorker—on how medical students fear losing the ability to think for themselves as they use AI to diagnose.
Per John Stuart Mill in his Chapters on Socialism, the three main sources of wealth are luck, vices like "hard-hearted, cold-fisted selfishness" and sycophancy, and "downright knavery."
September 24, 2025 at 1:05 PM
Per John Stuart Mill in his Chapters on Socialism, the three main sources of wealth are luck, vices like "hard-hearted, cold-fisted selfishness" and sycophancy, and "downright knavery."
George Washington, Address to the Officers of the Army (March 15, 1783)
September 19, 2025 at 10:18 PM
George Washington, Address to the Officers of the Army (March 15, 1783)
From Art of the Deal (p. 71).
August 26, 2025 at 7:35 PM
From Art of the Deal (p. 71).
August 26, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Putting finishing touches on course syllabi.
August 25, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Putting finishing touches on course syllabi.
Tocqueville on the incompatibility of economic inequality with democracy.
August 13, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Tocqueville on the incompatibility of economic inequality with democracy.