Against Traditional Morality
by James Hanley Guest author: James Hanley. Tom Van Dyke has written a very thoughtful post about the role of traditional morality in law. There are various points at which we could quibble with...
Tagged: Culture, Philosophy, & Religion
What are women for?
I keep trying to better understand James Poulos. I like James a great deal, though we disagree pretty fundamentally on many things. I’ve been fascinated by his discussions of the Pink Police State (a conservative...
Five Notes About Preferences
~ by Sam Wilkinson 1. I will happily argue with you about the best hot-dog in the world. I’ll tell you that it is served at Gene’s in my hometown, and that the idea...
How Finding a Job is Like Losing Your Keys
“Who do you think made the first stone spear? That wasn’t the yakkity yaks sitting around the campfire. It was some Asperger sitting in the back of a cave figuring out how to chip...
Fantasy and the Anglosphere
When I published my fantasy piece in the Atlantic it was linked (reproduced?) by Richard Dawkins’ site and a number of the atheists in the commentariat had scathing things to say about fantasy literature....
“Yuck” a Duck
~by RTod On Wednesday Erik posted a picture of two (presumably) married costumed lesbians, kissing while holding a sign saying Liberty, a sign saying Justice, and a child that is either from the Village...
On the value of higher education
Here’s James Poulos on higher education, claiming things like: We fixate on higher education as the key to employment because no other institution but college really acculturates Americans into “legitimate” society. Those who do...
The weird ideological inversion of the school reform debate
At one of our excellent sub-blogs, Alex Knapp makes this commonsensical point: We live in a country where Creationists can run for President without being laughed out of the room, homeopathy is seen as...
Abortion and Slavery again
Ta-Nehisi has pushed once again into the abortion and slavery debate, this time following the invocation of that analogy by Rick Santorum and Joe Klein’s subsequent defense of Santorum’s rhetoric. Now, I’ve admitted in...
On Certainty & Doubt
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with...
Status redistribution and American exceptionalism
“It occurs to me that there’s an obvious link here with the idea that the contemporary populist right is heavily driven by ressentiment—and that a lot of our current politics has less to do...
How to govern well
What do Singapore, the United States, Canada, Denmark, and England all have in common? At first glance, not much. One is an oligarchic city state, two are parliamentary democracies, another is a Scandinavian social...
Capra-corn and the life of our time
There’s a quote about Carl Jung that I’ve come across a couple of times and shamelessly stolen every chance I’ve had: “We live a double life whether we know it or not. We live...
One last salvo on immigration
Mark’s points about the relationship between American dynamism and immigration are well-taken. Again, I’d like to stress that I’m endorsing an exceedingly mild form restrictionism – perhaps a system that expands immigration quotas for...
The City That Never Sleeps – Or Shrinks
I enjoyed David’s defense of New York’s cultural dominance far more than I probably should have, and agree wholeheartedly. This despite the fact that, as a kid – and even into my early 20s...
Folk wisdom and the tyranny of the experts
[updated below] I’ve been thinking about birth a great deal lately. This is likely because birth in my family is just around the corner. Our second is due in July. In any case, all...
A brief defense of the Pope
[updated] “I read the coverage of the Pope every day in the newspapers and listen to the BBC news and as a Catholic and a journalist I feel like crying out pathetically: “This is...
Community, technology, & work
I think this Amanda Marcotte piece is pretty interesting. She touches on the idea of work and community and how the modern workplace has, until very recently, served to cut us off entirely from...
Markets in everything ctd.
I think Jason and I disagree less than his critique of my post would suggest. He is correct that my rather brief treatment of markets (and the purpose of markets) leaves a great deal...
Liberaltarianism is dead
“I don’t want to say that liberaltarianism is dead. But is it endangered? Sure. It deserves to be.” ~ Jason Kuznicki I think the hopes placed in the Obama administration by libertarians have been...
