Realities are greater than ideas
So why do Synodality, Social Justice, and other utopian schemes fall on their faces? And how can we make our efforts more productive? I discuss at Catholic World Report.
Political theory
Is New York still a city?
A lecture I presented at the 2018 meeting of the H. L. Mencken Club:
Is New York Still a City?
by James Kalb
We’re here at the conference to talk about whether America is still a nation. On this panel we’re discussing the limits of democratic pluralism. So I’ll discuss whether New York is a … More ...
A Decentralized American Nation?
Here’s a lecture I presented at a meeting of the H. L. Mencken Club, probably the 2018 one:
A Decentralized American Nation?
I’m going to speak about the idea of a decentralized American nation.
The topic’s an obvious one. The Mencken Club has mostly tended paleoconservative, and paleoconservatism was all about having a … More ...
What is Anti-Racism?
Racial differences and attachments are real, and they can’t be educated or administered away. Family, ancestry, and history are part of who we are, so they are part of identity. People take them to heart, and that’s not going to change.
So why do respectable people get so weird about them, and claim race doesn’t … More ...
More of the same
Here’s a discussion of the future of race relations.
More of the Same
The state of American race relations in twenty years will depend on the status of a conflict among various immovable objects and irresistible but slow-acting forces. Such conflicts generally don’t go anywhere fast, so neither will race relations.
The most obvious immovable … More ...
Where is all this leading?
My latest at Catholic World Report suggests that secular liberalism won’t have the staying power effectually to suppress Catholicism.
The darkness gathers
I have another piece on the Windsor decision, this one at Crisis Magazine. It deals with the increasing radicalism, mindlessness, and intolerance of mainstream progressive thought.
Windsor, inclusiveness, and the churches
Here, in an unpublished essay, I discuss the Windsor case, what it shows about our current situation, and how the Churches should respond.
Windsor, Inclusiveness, and the Churches
by James Kalb
In United States v. Windsor, the case that invalidated the Federal definition of marriage as the marriage of man and woman, the Supreme … More ...
The radical meaning of “gay marriage”
That’s the title of my most recent piece at Crisis Magazine. It discusses recent developments in connection with the trend toward a single universal regime of contract and regulation in which no point has privileged independence.
Against Inclusiveness
I’ve got a new book out, Against Inclusiveness: How the Diversity Regime is Flattening America and the West and What to Do About It. It develops some of the arguments from The Tyranny of Liberalism and applies them in a more focused way to debunk our supreme moral principle, or what now seems to … More ...