Out of his depth
Does Obama’s handshake/bow to the Japanese emperor remind anyone else of a high school kid clowning for the camera in a yearbook picture?
Practical politics
Do big tents go anywhere?
Evan McLaren notes that I mostly deal with grand issues and tend toward a “big tent” approach, at least among right-wingers, and wonders whether that makes sense.
I think my approach has been helpful theoretically, for getting an overall understanding of issues. If you give free play to a lot of different concerns, and don’t … More ...
Think tanks tank
At a friend’s suggestion I watched a bit of the Lehrer News Hour last night. He had a couple of think-tank types on, a guy from the Rand Corporation and a lady from somewhere or other, who were saying we had to show everyone we had a commitment to stay in Afghanistan for the long … More ...
Is a modest conservatism possible today?
The appeal of secular conservatism, like the appeal of laying off cultural conservatism, is that it tells us we can have a minimal politics.
From a conservative standpoint, that’s generally a good thing. As many have pointed out, the conservative tendency is to work within what exists and favor intelligent minor adjustments. If … More ...
Why the self-congratulation?
The election of a black man as president is supposed to be a wonderful thing. Doesn’t that depend on how it came about? If it shows the growth of human respect and a widening scheme of cooperation then it’s a good thing. If it shows that a social order that took particular histories and connections … More ...
Why Radical Traditionalism in Politics?
Because conservatism as normally understood is not possible in America today. Conservatism stands for loyalty to what is settled. It presumes that one belongs to a culture and civilization that is basically well-founded and coherent, so that it will return to type if a few errors are debunked and excesses suppressed.
None of that makes … More ...
Whiteness studies
Paul Gottfried makes some interesting points in a thinkpiece on white nationalists over at Takimag. His basic argument:
… More ...The rising generation cares even less than its parents about holding on to an inherited civilization. Most of my students in Western civ courses have only the vaguest idea of the figures in the Bible (including Jesus)
The outlook for the bobo ascendency
One issue raised by Brooks’s “bobos” (bourgeois bohemians, his new hip yuppie ruling class) is how long they’ll last in power. They do have some advantages:
- They control the commanding institutions, and since the most influential of those institutions depend on skill at manipulating symbols, it seems likely that will last.
- Mass education,
Finding reason in an unreasonable world
What do you say in response to a theory of things that is simplified to the point of absurdity: that asserts that existence is an illusion, or physical objects do not exist, or language is all a rhetorical power-game, or mathematical objects are only physiological states of someone’s brain? Some possibilities:
- Argument. It’s illuminating to
The eternal return of the same?
The discussion of the once and future paleoconservatism continues at Taki’s Magazine, with contributions from Daniel Larison and Richard Spencer. Larison seems to think that the new will be much the same as the old, while Spencer seems to identify with a sort of rambunctuous and generally nationalist individualism that perhaps can fuel … More ...