thoughts in and out of season
The disappearance of politics in today’s world reflects the disappearance of resistance to rational hedonism. “Give ’em what they want” has become the grand principle of what passes for public life. To put it formally, only a few crazies now dispute that the final goal of … More ...
The following review of Paul Gottfried’s After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State (Princeton 1999) appeared in the Summer 2001 issue of Telos.
The title of this book refers to the practice and ideology of contemporary Western government, which, in Gottfried’s view, bears little resemblance to historical liberalism and in many ways is … More ...
A slightly edited version of the following essay appeared in the Winter 2002 issue of Modern Age.
Emerson tells us that truth is “such a flyaway, such a slyboots, so untransportable and unbarrelable a commodity, that it is as bad to catch as light.”[1] However things may be with truth, it is so with … More ...
A slightly edited version of the following essay appeared in the Fall 1995 issue of Modern Age. The essay is also available in Dutch.
Confucius has had distinguished individual admirers[1] in America but otherwise no perceptible influence on our political thought. We have lost by our failure to attend to him. … More ...
A Swedish translation of the following essay appeared in the Swedish mainstream conservative quarterly Contextus (no. 4, 1998). Bracketed language did not appear in the essay as published.
The American Founding was the first of the liberal revolutions; nonetheless, America is in many ways the most conservative of Western countries. It is the most anticommunist, … More ...
Will there always be an England? Maybe not, says Peter Hitchens; indeed, the end may be upon us. In this book he presents a long-meditated account of the cultural revolution that has done away with much of what made Britain British … More ...
The attempt to base social order on human will dominates public life today to the point that objective moral order has become unthinkable. Technological hedonism, the rational organization of all things to give each man what he wants, is universally accepted as the guiding ideal.
The current situation has grown up in stages. The First … More ...
The goals and ultimate destiny of the European Union have been variously explained. The uncertainty is not altogether accidental, since the plan of the EU Founding Fathers was to bring about European unity by indirection. The strategy is a good one; it is hard to criticize what has no accepted description. Those who favor the … More ...
This is the February 1, 2005 revision of a summary of questions and objections regarding conservatism. Additional questions and comments are welcome. The conservatism discussed is traditionalist American conservatism. Other varieties are touched on in section 6, and their adherents are urged to draft additional FAQs. For further discussion and relevant links, see the Traditionalist … More ...