thoughts in and out of season
Takimag has published the following piece I wrote on social conservatism. Unfortunately, they no longer allow comments, which was always half the fun of publishing there.
Is Social Conservatism Necessary?
by James Kalb
January 15, 2009
Is Social Conservatism Necessary?
The voices of conventional wisdom are telling us once again that the Right should … More ...
The merest straw in the wind, but interesting nonetheless: Religious people have superior visual perception. It seems that Dutch Calvinist university students recognize embedded visual patterns faster than their atheist classmates.
The study reminds me of one Christopher Alexander reports in his Nature of Order that showed that children were generally very good at … More ...
A friend is guest-editing a special issue of some publication that will deal with problems of gifted and talented education. For some reason he asked me to contribute an article, and here’s an initial sketch that I plan to expand a great deal. Any comments at this point would be nonetheless welcome.
… More ...Gifted and Talented
“Nostalgia” is frequently associated today with “racism”, “sexism”, and “homophobia”. Among our betters, it has become a sort of general put-down for popular attachments. As in the case of “tolerance,” “openness,” and “acceptance of change,” the point of the expression at bottom is “do what you’re told and like it.”
Such expressions … More ...
The modern technological outlook can’t deal with issues of identity, because it abolishes essences—understandings of what things “really are”—in favor of measurable properties that fit the thing for particular chosen ends. That’s why it’s thought ignorant, irrational and abusive to treat someone differently because he’s a man or a gypsy, but not because he … More ...
In my last entry I moaned and groaned a bit about how the kind of reason that enables us to live reasonably has become an archaic concept, since the principles of scientism, commercialism and bureaucracy can’t make sense of it, and in comments to an earlier entry I touched on one aspect of its … More ...
Mark Richardson makes an interesting point in his discussion of the British writer Rebecca West: she may have been a feminist socialist, but she had a much more civilized mind than you’re likely to find today. In particular, she was able to enter into, and take seriously on their own terms, the several types … More ...
This past weekend I heard quite a good talk by James Kurth about the demise of the American nation due to its own internal defects (too much liberal individualism). Anyone who wants a clear exposition of the deep roots and radical nature of the problems of liberal modernity should read three pieces he wrote setting … More ...
The current philosophical definition of art that I commented on in the last entry, that it’s whatever is presented as such within the “artworld,” put me in mind of a comment Steve Sailer made a few days ago, that he’s “increasingly fascinated by how unrebellious, how credulously trusting of authority the post-1960s generations have turned … More ...
Columbia, a planned community in Maryland, was intended to be a suburban utopia without social divisions. It’s been fairly successful in its way: Money magazine ranks it #4 out of the top 100 places to live in the United States.
Utopia of course comes at a price. Everything that interferes with the perfect system has … More ...