Freedom and the political good
I have a piece by that name (subtitled “some preliminary considerations”) up at the Liberty Law Blog.
Political theory
What is the etiology of liberalism?
The question seems important, since where liberalism comes from affects how we should deal with it and where it is likely to go. Many right-wingers, for example, think of it as psychological or instrumental: people are liberals because they feel this way or that, or because they want to get money, power, status, or whatever. … More ...
Liberalism, Catholicism, and the Good
I have another column, this one on liberal and Catholic conceptions of the good and the just, at Catholic World Report.
More on freedom and tyranny
That’s the original title of my latest column at Catholic World Report. It’s basically an argument that Catholics shouldn’t base their political arguments on freedom, they should base them on substantive goods. (I don’t know what it shows that they renamed it “Tyranny, Religion, and the Fight for Freedom.”)
After Liberalism: Notes toward Reconstruction
That’s the title of an essay I wrote that appears in the Spring 2012 issue of the Intercollegiate Review.
Caught in the Morass
[The following review, somewhat edited in ways I did not have a chance to look at (and in some respects would not have approved), appeared under the title Libertarian Limits in the January 2012 issue of First Things]
On Tolerance: A Defence of Moral Independence, by Frank Furedi, Continuum, 224 pages, $22.95
The … More ...
God and liberal modernity
That’s the name of my March column at Catholic World Report.
Techno-traditionalism?
It seems accepted among educated Westerners that the rationality of an action is a matter of means and ends, of what we want and whether what we do is going to bring that about.
That’s true even among people who consider themselves right-wingers, reactionaries, traditionalists and so on, and who in many ways really are … More ...
Liberal Values and the Seduction of the American Right
The following is a talk delivered at the 2011 Conference of the H. L. Mencken Club.
Why has American conservatism been such a flop? It finds it impossible to define what it wants, stick with it, and defend it. The result is that it never wins and never even stands its ground.
To understand what’s … More ...
Liberal theosis
Modern thought can’t make sense of man. Science wants to treats him as part of single system of cause and effect, and liberalism also takes that approach when considering social policy. The problem though is that science and liberalism need scientists and liberals as they understand them—that is, they need thinkers, observers and agents who … More ...