thoughts in and out of season
Paul Gottfried makes some interesting points in a thinkpiece on white nationalists over at Takimag. His basic argument:
… More ...The rising generation cares even less than its parents about holding on to an inherited civilization. Most of my students in Western civ courses have only the vaguest idea of the figures in the Bible (including Jesus)
The Senate immigration bill has been fended off and seems likely to die. It remains the case, however, that very few people in positions of public influence or responsibility want to enforce restraints on immigration, and in a country as large and complex as the United States it’s hard to force something to happen if … More ...
Since I just complained about the mindlessness of present-day discussions of immigration and related issues, I suppose I should set forth a few points that should be added to the mix to improve rationality:
Linda Chavez, who makes her living as a conservative female Hispanic, has a column at Townhall that should really be read several times in full. A summary and selected quotes don’t do it justice. In brief, though, her point—which she puts quite bluntly—is that the fuss over amnesty for illegal aliens is simply noise … More ...
Some may harbor half-articulate doubts, but Catholics who want to be relevant have jumped on the bandwagon like everybody else. “Human rights” are now the sole moral basis of public discussion in the Western world. Rights rule, at least in theory. The bumper sticker says “question authority,” but that doesn’t apply to … More ...
Catholic neocon George Weigel starts off a short piece (about Nancy Pelosi of all things) praising Philadelphia in the 50s as “a town of ethnic neighborhoods in which Catholic kids unselfconsciously identified themselves by parish… dang, it was great. Or, as another product of that period, Garry Wills, once wrote, ‘Not a bad ghetto to … More ...
It may be misleading to call social positions that are in fact radically revisionist “mainstream” and “moderate,” since the attempt to transform fundamental human relations is neither, but it’s not dishonest. After all, if Gerry Ford didn’t set the gold standard for the mainstream moderate American there is no such thing, and he supported government … More ...
A few days ago I called Houston Baker a “thuggish hack,” and mentioned him as an example of “the lost honor of academia.” It seems to me that the information readily available on the internet supports those views (examples can be found here and here). Still, I was struck by how bad his situation … More ...
Insistence on ethnic diversity means trouble in activities where the nature of the activity goes with radical distinctions of status and reward. Here are some examples from today’s Drudge Report: top chef attacked as “racist”, Duke professors seek to defuse anti-lacrosse team ad. The problem won’t go away. Different groups aren’t going to … More ...
Steve Sailer’s got a good article about bigshot Harvard social scientist Robert D. Putnam. Putnam’s the guy behind Bowling Alone, a famous article (and then book) that documented the decline of civc engagement in America. More recently, as Sailer details, he’s published a study showing that more ethnic diversity means less social trust, … More ...