thoughts in and out of season
There are some interesting things in Unity is Health: An Evolutionary Left, an article by a neo-lefty British journalist who takes the notion of innate human nature seriously. What’s interesting in it is that there is apparently good reason to think that social inequality as such leads to bad health for those at the … More ...
What is America and what is it to us? It’s an odd and difficult question, even more so perhaps than what it is to be British. It’s nonetheless a pressing one in time of cultural transformation and war.
America has defined herself through a shifting combination of things: people, place, ideas, and institutions. People … More ...
Autonomy means “self-rule,” and liberalism makes it the supreme political goal. The coherence of classical liberalism depends on its ability to find a meaning of autonomy that promotes discipline and small government. On the face of it, that should be easy. After all, ruling yourself is a discipline, and external government is its negation. The … More ...
Paul Craig Roberts has a useful column summarizing recent studies on the relationship between guns and violence. Not surprisingly, the studies show that widespread gun ownership reduces violent crime by enabling law-abiding citizens to respond appropriately—that is, immediately and forcibly—to violence and the threat of violence.
So why the widespread vehement opposition to private … More ...
In the past day I’ve run twice into Roger Scruton’s 1996 Wall Street Jounal piece on “Godless Conservatism”, from which it appears that many people who are uncomfortable with liberalism find it speaks to them.
Basically, Scruton proposes a traditionalism that refers to nothing beyond itself, one that treats human goods as purely human … More ...
An online publication asked me to write a column on “what is a conservative,” so I put together a draft. It’s a conservative news site in South Carolina, rather well edited, and they’ve just been through an election in which there was a lot of discussion what a “true conservative” is.
Any comments?
… More ...What is
What kind of conservatism is possible today? Conservatism has always emphasized tradition. Since the goods tradition promotes can be difficult to articulate—if things were otherwise the goods wouldn’t have to be embodied in tradition but could be taken straight—and since the opponents of tradition refuse to admit the reality and value of traditional goods, the … More ...
What is the proper place for freedom? Certainly the liberal view that freedom is a self-contained final standard for politics is wrong, since freedom is always freedom to do or be something. As such it must be understood by reference to some further good. Freedom is primarily freedom to acquire or achieve something good. … More ...
Why is something as radical as inclusiveness ideology normal, so that if you disagree with it you’re an irrational extremist? Here are some possibilities:
In America today traditionalist conservatism seems quite radical. It rejects technocracy and egalitarian hedonism—the central tenets of current political and moral discussion—together with ideals like inclusiveness and institutions like the modern managerial state that flow from them. It calls, in fact, for absolutely fundamental changes in the public order and the beliefs that motivate it.… More ...