thoughts in and out of season
A Finnish correspondent sent me some questions about the current overall situation, where it’s likely to go, and what to do about it. I thought others might find them of interest, so here they are with my responses:
… More ...Q: How do we know that faith in the omnicompetence of technique will give way to anything
A correspondent with a scientific turn of mind wanted to pursue a question raised here a a week or two ago, why the Derrida and similar viruses are such a plague now when earlier they weren’t a problem.
My comments (slightly edited):
… More ...It seems that most “why now” explanations emphasize features of modern life
The institutional expert consensus on the raising of children by homosexual couples is that
… More ...there is no evidence that lesbians and gay men are unfit to be parents or that psychosocial development among children of gay men or lesbians is compromised in any respect. . . . Not a single study has found children of
Privacy, tolerance, and the “wall of separation” were supposed to keep the government out of our private affairs, and especially out of our churches and bedrooms. Things haven’t worked out quite so smoothly, or at least that’s most likely the view of the Christian mother who is appealing a judge’s decision that prohibits her … More ...
Conservatives can be divided into (1) pessimists, who think the trend is down, down, down, and (1) optimists, who think things aren’t so bad. The pessimists point to things like Grutter, Lawrence, and the business-as-usual attitude of most mainstream conservatives to those decisions. The optimists point to things like practical limitations on the … More ...
Today people say there is no history “as it really was.” A story is a human construction, and its truth is mostly a matter of acceptance by the relevant community. So if that’s so, why shouldn’t those who accept that the human world is a human construction, to be remade in accordance with desire, try … More ...
Memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus discusses the reliability of people’s beliefs about their own experiences. Her research suggests—and I think it’s borne out by daily experience—that they’re often not reliable at all. Further, notorious cases involving “recovered memories of abuse,” which she also discusses, demonstrate that expert intervention tends to make things worse. Experts are human … More ...
These, I think, are all the same story:
Among the claims Professor Bellesiles made in his Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture — a book once acclaimed and now thoroughly discredited — was that there was no significant market for guns in early America. Clayton Cramer, one of Bellesiles’ most effective debunkers, describes the results of a quick look at … More ...
The conservative liberalism of Stanley Kurtz accepts the liberal view that the good of the individual is the ability to do as he chooses. It nonetheless recognizes the need for traditional moral restraints to moderate the pursuit of self-interest, and in particular to promote the network of habits and mutual obligations that constitutes family life. … More ...