thoughts in and out of season
A couple of recent polls indicate a decided recent shift to the left on social issues, and so make it evident that current fears of fundamentalism and theocracy are due mostly to the shock of increasingly radical “mainstream” thinkers that there are people who haven’t radicalized as much as they have and so act as … More ...
A commenter, apparently an American Jew long resident in Italy who can view America (and Europe) as both insider and outsider, has posted a lengthy ramble about America, Americanism, modernity, and related topics. His ramble raises some interesting issues, but two that seem especially worth commenting on are whether advanced liberalism, the currently ascendant … More ...
Student free speech cases like “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” strike me as rather silly. Schools always try to bring students to think and act in some ways rather than others. That’s why they exist. To do so they maintain controlled environments and clear hierarchies of authority. In particular, they prescribe the topics of … More ...
Steve Sailer notes something notable:
… More ...In the past, typically, happy talk was the style of the insecure middle of the social scale. Those who wished to be seen as above status concerns espoused frankness … A really odd thing about American culture today, however, is that as you go up the educational and social
A study from the Barna Group has turned up some interesting info on the numbers, lifestyles and self-perceptions of American atheists and agnostics, and how they contrast with those of active Christians. The most striking findings are:
Back in the ’60s people used to go off to look for America. The idea was that you’d drive your car across the country or hitch a ride on a freight train with your guitar or something and then you’d meet the people and find out how wonderful and democratic America is or whatever. Off … More ...
I’ve been reading some intellectual and cultural history lately, James H. Billington’s The Icon and the Axe and part of Vernon Louis Parrington’s The Beginnings of Critical Realism in America 1860-1920.
I’m an American who knows very little about Russia. That might be one reason I thought the Billington book on Russia was really … More ...
I’ve always thought that surveys showing that more formal education means more liberal social views and less religion are chiefly a sign that formal education is a system for inculcating the outlook of formal public institutions, and thus for disrupting informal traditions and ordinary conclusions from daily experience. That view is now supported by a … More ...
A reader writes:
… More ...I just graduated from Haverford College, a liberal Quaker school outside of Philadelphia. A few years ago, two students dressed as black pop-stars went to a Halloween party wearing brown face paint. They were punished, pretty much for hate speech, on the grounds that even though they didn’t intend to offend people,
Which will win: the American tendency to make free speech absolute, or the globalization of human rights and the tendency to make tolerance and inclusiveness greater absolutes? I’ve thought the latter will win, and we’ll end up with the anti-“hate” censorship you find in Canada and Europe. A recent case seems to point that way. … More ...