Grub Street Philosophy: 1
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Grub Street is about ideas. The grubstreet.ca aim is to help new ideas flourish and older ideas get a second wind. We're a forum for well-constructed ideas. We'll accomplish this goal by posting opinion and commentary; fiction, wit and satire; reviews and essays on topics of general and specific interest. If you'll write it, we'll post it.
 

grubstreet.ca urges visitors to read, think and take informed action. Agreement is less of a concern than thoughtfulness. If one percent -- 1% -- more women and men took a moment to think a little more about any one issues, concern or problem, there'd be half as many issues, concerns and problems than now. A little focus fixes many errors and makes a lot of poop go away.

Visitors are encouraged to express themselves, to write for posting. Transferring thoughts to paper improves the quality of the thought. To write, you must think, first; having written, the natural tendency is to rethink. It's no secret that the quality of ideas improves through expression.

Lionel Trilling and, his mentor, John Erskine concluded that each of us has a moral obligation to be intelligent, that is, to think about issues, concerns and problems, and express our thoughts. About 1907, a US journalist, for the Baltimore "Sun," H. L. Mencken, who's believed to have written more words about more topics than any writer, bemoaned the declining quality of candidates for the US Presidency, and the presidents, themselves. If, he suggested, we ignore our moral obligation to be intelligent, a moron, a man or woman with an standardized IQ of 50-69, where the average is 100 and 95% of all IQs fall between 70 and 130, will be elected to lead the country and the world.*

John Lennon, in "Working Class Hero," expressed similar sentiment. "They hate you if you're clever, and they despise a fool," which may not apply in the USA, 2000-2008, but will, again, afterward. Think independently, but don't dare voice or act on your opinions is the point made by Lennon. At grubstreet.ca, the opposite prevails.

grubstreet.ca exists to meet the challenge of Trilling and Erskine. Sadly, we can't do anything, anymore, about the inevitability of the comment by Mencken. We might address another of his ideas. "The saddest life," Mencken wrote, in 1929, "is that of a [politico] under democracy. His [or her] failure is ignominious and his [or her] success is disgraceful."

Paying attention to any issue, concern or problem improves it by twenty-five percent. Every consultant is thus confident in his or her ability to flourish. If you're thoughtful about any problem, you're half way or more to solving it.
 

Grub Street aims to be the destination of choice for opinions, comments, analyses, commentaries and reviews that expand-on and influence social life and social relations, across the world. Posting new, short fiction is also a grubstreet.ca goal. Progress, as a result, is inevitable, if attention is paid.
 

grubstreet.ca interests are eclectic. Social policy, culture, connections and the arts, including music of all types, radio and television, share the site with politics, skiing, foreign affairs and cars, religion, business and book reviews. We're about ideas, and these primary offerings, which are open to expansion.

grubstreet.ca aims to be the on-line home of public intellectuals, who want to bring nuanced learning from the social sciences, arts, humanities and hard sciences to the general reader. Our main belief echo Erskine and Trilling. They argued we've a moral obligation to be aware, understand and draw conclusions about social life and social relations, and to pass along what learn and know, so others may learn.

grubstreet.ca strives to fulfill that social debt. We stress content. Limited advertising is available.

Advertisers, as do all social actors, need limits. A good place to limit competition among advertisers, is on this site. Whomever decides to advertising, here, gets the full attention of the reader, free of the visual clanging and clutter, so often found on websites.

Click here for more about how this website got its name.

Click  Philosophy 2, Philosophy 3 to learn more about Grub Street.

Grub Street stands for the practical importance of expression. Everybody has much to contribute. The greater the volume of expression, if not the diversity, the closer and brighter the light at the end of the tunnel.

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