thoughts in and out of season
Why is it that “human rights” treaties get signed with such alacrity? On its face, The Convention on the Rights of the Child makes depriving a child of the right to watch the TV programs he likes (Article 13) or choose who he hangs out with (Article 15) human rights violations. Nonetheless, it has been … More ...
Why does liberal society function as well as it does? Ordinary people and theoreticians complain about it, its proponents have trouble defending it coherently, and its imminent demise has been announced since long before any of us were born. Nonetheless, it is more widespread and firmly rooted than ever and its development goes from victory … More ...
There isn’t much more inhuman in our national life than the notion that the United States is a “creedal” or “propositional” nation. We need something to hold us together, so it is said, and we don’t have blood and soil, which sounds Nazi anyway, so we have to rely on our national creed—the proposition that … More ...
You can’t beat something with nothing, so what do traditionalist conservatives put up to oppose the liberals? The answer is clear enough. Politics is the art of living together, so the basic political question is what kind of life is best. Liberalism is based on the liberal notion of the good life—in theory doing your … More ...
A puzzling and annoying feature of the left-wing rhetoric that passes for mainstream thought today is its tendency to reduce everything to immediately personal likes and dislikes. If you think immigration should be reduced or homosexuality is a moral disorder then you’re “anti-immigant” or “anti-gay,” and your attitudes are examples of “hate.” The rhetoric may … More ...
Free institutions, free men, free thought—something of the sort is needed for tradition. Tradition isn’t forced, administered, or intentionally created. It grows out of experience in ways that can’t be predicted, and it’s completely at odds with rationalized control based on explicit standards.
Nonetheless, tradition also requires subordination. It requires that we view ourselves as … More ...
To be like one thing is to be different from another. The things that divide are therefore the same as the things that unite. That’s so obviously true that it’s hard to imagine how anyone could ever have seen “inclusiveness” as a possible ideal.
If it’s presented as an ideal there’s a shell game going … More ...
More thoughts on liberalism! (Sorry for devoting so much space to the topic, but it’s better than pederasty and prison rape.)
Liberalism wins arguments each step of the way, because it is concerned only with the articulate. It refers to the inarticulate as prejudice, stereotype, obscurantism, and so on. It therefore has no interest in … More ...
What would be necessary for the rebirth of traditional society?
Traditional society is society oriented toward transcendent good. To say a good—the good life, say—has a transcendent element is to say we can’t make what it is altogether explicit or know it sufficiently on our own. If that is so, however, we must rely on … More ...
Is liberalism politically necessary, because there’s too little agreement on basics? That’s what is said. Any attempt to enforce non-liberal views, special recognition of a particular religion for example, would be hopelessly divisive and require unacceptable coercion. Religious establishments have been in decline for a long time, and serious attempts to re-impose them today soon … More ...