thoughts in and out of season
[The tenth in a series on inclusiveness.]
I’ve said that inclusiveness has a religious quality. To say it is a kind of religion is not to say it works well as one. Religion defines the place of man in the world, but inclusiveness reflects the modern outlook, which has difficulty dealing with such … More ...
Political modernity is based on rejection of the premodern belief that man participates in some sort of higher nature. As such, it can take several forms. Liberalism is the form that has won, but not the only one that has existed.
If we get rid of the transcendent, we might view man as fundamentally biological … More ...
[The ninth in a series on inclusiveness.]
Western societies treat liberal ideals of freedom, equality, diversity, tolerance, and inclusiveness as uniquely authoritative. Those ideals increasingly trump all other considerations and silence all criticism.
As a practical matter, they mean rule by experts, bureaucrats, and commercial interests that promise to give everyone what he wants, … More ...
[The eighth in a series on inclusiveness.]
What’s it like to live in a modern, diverse, tolerant, vibrant, inclusive, multicultural society? Everyday experience in early twenty-first century America is enough to sketch the situation in bold strokes.
Growing up absurd
Such a society lacks sustaining stories, symbols, and models of a good life, and … More ...
[The seventh in a series on inclusiveness.]
The Catholic view of the world has lasted a long time and supported many good things, so the Catholic view of antidiscrimination and inclusiveness ought to matter to anyone interested in those topics.
But what is “the Catholic view”? The phrase can refer to anything from the … More ...
[The sixth in a series on inclusiveness.]
A common leftist claim is that established social and moral principles serve the interests of the ruling classes. The claim isn’t applied to principles of which the left approves. In particular, it’s not applied to inclusiveness. That’s unfortunate, because it’s obvious that inclusiveness serves governing elites by … 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 ...
[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:
[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 ...