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Dignity Now?

David Brooks’ recent column, called “In Search of Dignity,” is of pomocon interest. Just as Brooks tends to view genius as the practical result of expeditiously logging big hours of disciplined rehearsal, he sees the survival of dignity as dependent upon the persistence of a . . . . Continue Reading »

Postmodern Conservatism and Civil Rights

Here’s an excerpt from an article on the Sixties of mine in THE INTERCOLLEGIATE REVIEW . It supports the Tocquevillian thought that things are mainly getting better and worse, as well as the thought that the aggressive nationalizing of the civil rights movement was in response to a state and . . . . Continue Reading »

Argot

My lighthearted abbreviation of ‘premod’ conservatives (in contrast to pomocons) has inspired John Schwenkler and Conor Friedersdorf to newly subversive heights: “prefab” will be the new term of choice for conservatism of the talk radio variety [ . . . .] In honor of Michael . . . . Continue Reading »

Lookin’ Up to Big Brother

Over at The Atlantic, I give a synopsis of what I’m on about when talking of the ‘pink police state’ — Orwell’s ‘Big Brother’ meets the big brother who drives a Camaro, goes to community college, and bounces at the local strip club. . . . . Continue Reading »

A Note on Tone; or, the Perils of Aphorism

Freddie responds to my tweet on Iran, solidarity, and fashion: I could imagine that James’s refusal to show solidarity with the protesters (or at least his discomfort in the same) is the product of apathy or fear of the other. I think, applied generally and not specifically, that’s a . . . . Continue Reading »

Booze: For, Against, and * Hiccup *

Steve Sailer suggests that booze works wonders: Perhaps alcohol enables one individual to display a wider range of personalities than can be achieved through solely genetic means, thus allowing personalities to evolve farther in directions suitable for making a living, while still allowing people . . . . Continue Reading »

Hipology

The results of two studies indicate that people who are high in openness to new experience and high in neuroticism are likely to be bloggers. That from a study forwarded along to Richard Florida by Cambridge ‘personality psychologist’ Jason Rentfrow. Dig deeper, and the following . . . . Continue Reading »

Bean and Time

One line of commentary on my last post is deeply disconcerting. Three of our fellow bloggers on the postmodern conservative website have launched a scandalous attack on Maxwell House, mocking the American company which, until Folgers came on to the scene, was the number one producer of coffee in . . . . Continue Reading »

Spirits of Rhetoric

The Immanent Frame, an academic blog launched on the release of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age , is still going strong. They’ve started a new discussion series , replete with invited scholars, centered around Obama’s traditionalistic inaugural claim that the “values upon . . . . Continue Reading »

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