JACKI LYDEN, host:
We're back with ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
And these were three of the people we lost in the last days of 2010.
Mr. DENIS DUTTON (Philosopher): Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? No. It's deep in our minds. It's a gift handed down from the intelligent skills and rich emotional lives of our most ancient ancestors.
Ambassador DAVID WILKINS: Today in Washington, we're lacking the Milliken mindset. Well, here in South Carolina, our party is benefiting from the Milliken match.
Dr. BILLY TAYLOR (Jazz Pianist and Educator): Jazz is distinctly American music. It takes the most important elements in our culture and expresses them in musical terms.
LYDEN: James Fallows of The Atlantic is here to talk about these three who all died this past week.
Welcome and happy New Year, Jim.
Mr. JAMES FALLOWS (National Correspondent, The Atlantic): Thank you. Same to you, Jacki.
LYDEN: So the first voice we heard was that of Denis Dutton, the American philosopher and skeptic who died on Tuesday at the age of just 66.
Mr. FALLOWS: Yes. He died in New Zealand where he lived for the last 25 years as a philosophy professor at the University of Canterbury. What was so striking about Denis Dutton, who I knew somewhat over the years, was the range of his interests and accomplishments.
He was, of course, a philosopher. The quote you heard was from his argument that our appreciation of beauty is not something that's socially shaped but is part of our evolutionary heritage. He sponsored the famous Bad Writing Contest, which got so popular he finally had to call if off. And he created a very, very influential website called Arts & Letters Daily, which was sort of the first high-end internet magazine that's worth looking at even now.
LYDEN: Jim, the second man in your list here is Roger Milliken. And he was much older - 95 - when he died on Thursday.
Mr. FALLOWS: Yes. He died in South Carolina where he lived - he spent most of his life. He was also, like Denis Dutton, a man of amazingly varied part. He's probably best known as an industrialist. His Milliken Industries he led for a very long time, and his family still controls it. He was very, very active in conservative politics.
He was a very influential early backer of Barry Goldwater. He convinced Strom Thurmond to become a Republican in South Carolina, and in a way, sort of built a Republican Party in South Carolina and the south more generally. At the same time, he was a scholar and an intellectual and an environmentalist and a person who was very, very committed to research at his company and to American-based manufacturing and represented a kind of high-end intellectually based conservatism that's not quite as permanent on the American scene now.
LYDEN: Lastly, Jim, a few words of remembrance about a man who was much loved here at NPR, Dr. Billy Taylor, the jazz pianist and educator who had a program for many, many years, "Jazz Alive."
Mr. FALLOWS: He was a great performer and a great teacher. And one of the things I most appreciated about him was a series of clips I saw recently from a show he did in 1950. It's called "The Subject is Jazz," bringing the whole culture of music, the history of music and the technique to a wider audience. And that is one of his great achievements for which he'll be appreciated and missed.
LYDEN: And a link with so many great performers. It's nice to think about these three. James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. And you can read his blog at jamesfallows.theatlantic.com.
Jim, thanks so much. I'm glad to start the New Year with you.
Mr. FALLOWS: Thank you, Jacki.