Support First Things by turning your adblocker off or by making a  donation. Thanks!

Prospects for Secularists

From First Thoughts

Over at Secular Right , David Hume has words for our PAL: Though the author of Atheist Delusions is an Eastern Orthodox theologian and philosopher, Lawler reports that his criticism of the New Atheists starts from a Nietzschian perspective. All I have to say is that homey don’t play that game. . . . . Continue Reading »

This Day In Paradox

From First Thoughts

How long before someone makes the argument that the government has to deal drugs in order to afford the medicine Americans need ? The libertarian rejoinder that we can and should decriminalize pot without nationalizing health care shows more intellectual promise than popular support. And too many . . . . Continue Reading »

Premonitions of Populism

From First Thoughts

George Will on Michele Bachmann: Looking toward 2012, she is not drawn merely to Sarah Palin or other darlings of social conservatives. She certainly is one of those, but she knows that economic hardship and government elephantiasis now trump other issues. Indeed, but what’s really of . . . . Continue Reading »

Absolut Absolutism

From First Thoughts

Our Ivan Kenneally unloads on Obamacare in The Weekly Standard: If one were to take seriously the central premise of Obama’s ersatz science of politics—the distinction between political facts and moral values—the inescapable conclusion is that our president turns out to be a . . . . Continue Reading »

Universality Is Not the Issue, Dude

From First Thoughts

I hoped I could prove this with a link, but back during the presidential primary race, I told at least one person that, when it came to the health care debate, not universality but comprehensiveness was the issue. You can imagine that a pomocon has an ingrained or inherent dislike for . . . . Continue Reading »

Another Word on Individuality

From First Thoughts

Somewhat delayed post, but the topic, I think, is plenty fresh. On the Brooks view of individuality (which I discussed on below), Maggie Gallagher at the Corner says: Having psychologized every other aspect of morality, there is no good reason why we shouldn’t also psychologize the idea of . . . . Continue Reading »

Why The Culture Wars Won’t Die

From First Thoughts

From the very outset, the term ‘culture wars’ was misleading. Not that it wasn’t apropos — for, indeed, as all could see, there were different cultures contending over not just authority but power in America, many cultures in one manner but, in another, at rock bottom, only . . . . Continue Reading »

Playing With The Wild Things

From First Thoughts

David Brooks tells us that Where The Wild Things Are accurately shows that, for us, the “philosopher’s” way of thinking about the good life is out and the “psychologist’s” way is in. The wild things, just as the tagline tells us, are inside us all, just one of . . . . Continue Reading »

Letterman and the Abolition of Cruelty

From First Thoughts

Cruelty, the famous theorist Judith Shklar tells us, is the worst thing we do. For small-l and big-L liberals as different as Richard Rorty and George Kateb, cruelty is borne of moral solipsism, an overly me-centric attitude toward experience that blinds us to the truth about the reality of other . . . . Continue Reading »