thoughts in and out of season
James Kalb Many people claim discrimination is merely negative: “white,” for example, means “not colored,” where “colored” refers to those whose exclusion constitutes “white” as a category. On such a view discrimination has to do with artificial categories. There are academics who make even sex a social construction.
Such claims are evidently trivial or false. It is … More ...
I recently went to “Bach Vespers” at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church here in New York. The music was good, the ceremony dignified, the physical surroundings beautiful and fitting, the people highly presentable in a high-class respectable Northern European serious-minded style.
I won’t go back, because all those fine things were made part of the rites … More ...
Real Physics, the weblog of an Aristotelian physics PhD, has an interesting post on Climategate as a manifestation of Baconian science—that is, of “science” oriented toward control rather than truth.
My take on the problem is that modern scientific thought emphasizes experimental verification and tries to pare down references to things that can’t be … More ...
Something I wrote, an analysis of liberalism, libertarianism, and conservatism, was enough to provoke a libertarian blogger (“larryniven”) to murder fantasies. I decided to address his concerns, but our exchange went nowhere. So I decided to reconstruct it, along with a short side exchange with a mainstream social liberal from Australia, into the … More ...
R. R. Reno has a review of my book in the most recent Intercollegiate Review. He titles the review “Resistance Literature,” a phrase intended as high praise.
One interest prompting my return to blogging is some writing I’ve been doing about “inclusiveness.” I’ve written various pieces on the topic, and I touched on the issue in my recent book. Now I’m trying to put my thoughts together in what may turn into a series of articles or book. I’ll be posting … More ...
Inclusiveness tells us that characteristics that traditionally define personal identity have no legitimate social role. If my specific identity as a man or member of a particular people is connected to my position in the world, that’s intolerable and something has to be done about it.
That can’t be the end of the story. We … More ...
Does Obama’s handshake/bow to the Japanese emperor remind anyone else of a high school kid clowning for the camera in a yearbook picture?
A friend sent me something he was writing on the political prospects for protectionist legislation. I sent him the following response, which I’ve edited a bit and relates to much more than protectionism:
… More ...In general, your discussion follows the interest-group, competing political party, voter sovereignty model of political life in a modern democracy.
I sometimes
I’ve decided to return to blogging, and I’ve marked the event with a new slogan and a few other minor changes.
The new slogan reflects the basic weblog situation—one man commenting on whatever comes to mind. I wanted a change, and “tradition and Catholicism” seemed a bit like “truth and logic” as a slogan when … More ...