thoughts in and out of season
A while back I noted the oddity of Catholic neocon George Weigel praising Philadelphia in the 50s as “a town of ethnic neighborhoods in which Catholic kids unselfconsciously identified themselves by parish … dang, it was great” and in a few lines without explanation attacking those who wanted to maintain ethnic and religious boundaries in … More ...
Melanie Phillips gives a pop version of objections to attempts by scientists and their hangers-on and popularizers to claim that something like modern natural science can explain everything.
The basic problem, I think, is that modern natural science achieves its amazing power through clarity and concentration, which means it achieves it through narrowness. It can’t … More ...
Another example of how people act when their metaphysics are challenged: Status of Catholic Church in Spain Threatened. The Catholic Church in Spain has protested a citizenship education program that promotes full normalization of homosexuality. Professor Gregorio Peces-Barba Martínez, apparently the socialist government’s main theoretician, has responded with a newspaper column in which he … More ...
People say religion is irrational and religious people are crazy. Sometimes that’s so, of course, but the same could be said of secular people and their views. The truth of the matter is that everyone has metaphysical principles that determine how he understands the world, and when someone insists on something without evidence, or even … More ...
A recent editorial in the New York Times, entitled “The Misery Strategy,” mixes abusive rhetoric with the Orwellian view that evil American leaders are imposing a restrictive immigration policy on the American people. In the midst of it all they nonetheless make a point worth answering:
… More ...[The] idea is that harsh, unrelenting
Every movement needs high-flown rhetoric, and trad rightwingery can’t be any different. Inspired by what seems voguish I’ve put together a few phrases for my own “I have a dream” speech. Additions are welcome.
… More ...I dream of an America that is a normal country.
I dream of an America that is not an all-purpose fantasy,
For several years the following text was distributed monthly on the usenet newsgroup alt.revolution.counter. Distribution was abandoned at some point in 2001, when it seemed that discussions had altogether petered out. So here it is, for old time’s sake:
… More ...FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
- What is the purpose of alt.revolution.counter?
The discussion of counterrevolutionary perspectives on
At bottom, conservatism is simply attachment to a specific society. It is therefore a disposition to maintain the features of the society that make it what it is: the particular people who make it up, the beliefs, commitments and institutions that order it, and the concrete features that define its character and distinguish it … More ...
I just went to a concert put on by a musician who lives in the neighborhood that put me in mind of a comment I made a while back on a William Wegman exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum:
… More ...He has loads of talent and industry, he seems like a perfectly normal guy, and his stuff
When “freedom” means fluid standards and relationships, it puts everything up for grabs. When everything is up for grabs the grabby get everything. Tastes differ, but that doesn’t seem so great to me.
For some reason grabbiness is thought a specifically capitalistic vice. In fact, the point of private property is that it limits grabbiness … More ...