Over at the Confabulum I’ve tried to continue rolling out my conceptual brief against ideology . Part of my contention there is that in democratic times the allure of ideology is the condensation of politics, religion, and culture into a single, concise, comprehensive doctrine. A political . . . . Continue Reading »
It is often correctly pointed out that Kant saw himself as carrying out a grand Socratic mission inherited from Rousseau. However, as Kant himself makes clear in his Logic , this had less to do with the recognition of the aporetic character of philosophy and more to do with the distinction . . . . Continue Reading »
Our own Peter Lawler insightfully examines the evidence that, despite breathless exertions in the service of creating a secular paradise, the modern attempt to "master and possess" nature has failed to make us fundamentally happier. The crux of the problem has to do with our . . . . Continue Reading »
A possibility Helen doesn’t explore explicitly is that Obama’s broad but thin and vague popularity is in some significant measure the consequence of stale ideas on the right — or at least of the inability of the right to translate their ideas into practice. We should wonder more . . . . Continue Reading »
Don’t take offense at my use of the second person, but you know what it’s like to write something in a late night haze—the "liquor-induced" is silent—only to find the next morning that your big epiphany was gobbledygook. Back when I was hung up on whether or not I . . . . Continue Reading »
Dr. Lawler asks, in a question re: my previous post, "Are today’s sophisticated Western individuals the first people to ever have lost all contact with any sense of transcendence of their biological existence?" To be intellectually sophisticated there must be . . . . Continue Reading »
Quick takes on the sparks flying off Helen’s latest: 1. Definitely Alex Massie is right as far as it goes when he heaps criticism on this notion that there is a "Red" America and a "Blue" America. True, this is fostered by all the sweet and pretty maps, but it’s . . . . Continue Reading »
Bowing to relentless and overwhelming demand from postmodern-leaning lovers of truth and virtue waiting somewhere out there in cyberspace, I offer this extended version of the Draft Manifesto from a few weeks ago. (I include the previously published first 8 points here, so you won’t . . . . Continue Reading »
Over at the Confabulum, James has raised the following worry about what people are caling the "New Fusionism": "But both Benedictinism and libertarianism are fairly anti-political worldviews. Any fusion between them would deepen and widen the disconnect between Americans, their . . . . Continue Reading »
I’ve enjoyed exploring the nooks and crannies of James’s sprawling post , but there’s one thread of it I’d like to pick up—the one having to do with loyalty ( unsurprisingly ). It may strain my vernacular blogging style to take up such an unabashedly theoretical . . . . Continue Reading »
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