I would note a couple of complications for the Front Porch discussion of Strauss in relation to an Alternative Tradition in America. Discussion of these complications might help to clarify what, if anything stable and substantial, is really at stake between a Front Porch and a Pomocon position . . . . Continue Reading »
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 »
A brief remark as I hang out with my newly home-birthed son. (The goods of home birth definitely transcend all isms.) A recent portion of our pomocon/FPR critical saga has involved a fascinating exchange of allegations of stoicism and praise for certain kinds of stoicism. And it is true that . . . . Continue Reading »
Peter’s delightful post, Localism, takes his work to a new level of literary achievement. This is the stuff of anthologies and Greatest Works collections. It is singularly brilliant, it reveals him not as your stereotypical pointy-headed philosophy . . . . Continue Reading »
James is fond of destinguishing between ‘political libertarians’ and ‘cultural libertarians’, and the more that I read the ongoing kerfuffle over localism that has spread from PoMoCon and FPR to First Thoughts and Daniel McCarthy , the more I think a similar distinction . . . . Continue Reading »
Our PAL has made a comment down there that deserves some above-the-fold riffing. He writes that Locke knew nominalism would become more true as a description, but it could never become completely true. Part of the description of world where words are weapons and nothing but is of the incessant . . . . Continue Reading »
Further thoughts on liberalism, libertinism, and Lawlerism: an interview at The University Bookman . One thing I could have explicitly affirmed is that individuals are wholes, not holes — but that would have been a substantial (and stylistic) ripoff . . . . . Continue Reading »
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 »
Pomocon ponderings continued: 1. On one end you have a profound way of life , rooted and grounded in a robust and declarative embodiment of the whole . On the other end you have a superficial lifestyle , one option among many chosen for no more and no less than idiosyncratic, contingent, partial . . . . Continue Reading »
While we’re on the subject of form, I recently stumbled upon University of Texas mathematics professor Nikos Salingaros’ phenomenal work Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction , a short excerpt of which is posted on his faculty page: In wanting to explain a cultural mystery — why . . . . Continue Reading »