thoughts in and out of season
James Kalb 
Here are some photos I took with my cell phone when I ran into a labor/immigrants’ rights demonstration while out for a bike ride yesterday. Lots of chants, lots of mass-produced signs and accessories, generally very orderly. (Sorry for the picture quality, click for a bigger image.)
Apparently the unions think it’s good for their … More ...
[The fifth in a series on inclusiveness.]
Inclusiveness and diversity help dissolve particular connections in favor of universal formal institutions like world markets and transnational bureaucracies. The effort is part of the general advanced liberal project, and its intent is to recreate human connections on a basis that is more rational and fosters freedom, … More ...
[The fourth in a series on inclusiveness.]
The demand for inclusiveness is often attributed to emotion, but something so systematic and persistent can only be based on principle.
No one explains very clearly what the principle is, so it’s evidently something taken for granted. The peremptory nature of antidiscrimination, together with the irrelevance of … More ...
They’re just side comments, but if you haven’t bought your copy yet you should consider what people are saying at Chronicles (“Mr. Kalb[‘s] … wonderful book”) and The Thinking Housewife (“thoughtful and absorbing … absolutely engrossing … long shelf life”). So everybody’s talking about it! Do you want to be the only one left out?… More ...
[The third in a series on inclusiveness.]
As I showed in my last piece in this series, prejudice and discrimination are natural, normal, and beneficial in the same way other basic principles that order human life—like private property and government—are natural, normal, and beneficial.
Here are some examples of prejudice and discrimination:
I’m usually too unsocial to participate in blogging memes, but the idea of listing the ten books I’ve been most influenced by caught my attention. In a carping world we should express gratitude now and then, and if you want people to read your stuff it seems civil to offer a little background on where … More ...
The Easter offensive against the Church has been unusually aggressive this year, and it’s lasting longer than usual. A sober response is naturally in order, and there are those who are providing it, but at bottom the attacks don’t bother me that much. Some reasons:
[The second in a series on inclusiveness.]
Liberals claim to oppose discrimination, but feel free to make the distinctions they think make sense. Financial, bureaucratic, and institutional criteria are OK, or so they believe, but natural and traditional criteria are not. You can choose a Yale man over a Harvard man—the schools are a … More ...
Deogolwulf has a post and comments that are worth reading for the account they give of the essential unity of classical and contemporary liberalism.
I just finished an advanced review copy of The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist, by Robert R. Reilly. It’s a clear and informative book that quotes lots of primary sources and deals with basic issues in an intelligent way.
Like any book it has certain limitations. … More ...