Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
This gushing review of the Fulbright Program for "citizen diplomats" is elite pap: Since Aug. 1, 1946, the Fulbright Program — the U.S. Department of State’s flagship international exchange program — has withstood the test of time to continually enhance mutual understanding between Americans and citizens of more than 160 partner countries worldwide. But what …
Continue reading "Another Reason to Take Down William Fulbright’s Statue"
What Schmitt is saying here is very important, and it might very well end up being the true cost of the Afghanistan debacle. Every ruling class throughout history advances various claims about its own legitimacy, without which a stable political order is impossible. Legitimating claims can take many different forms and may change over time, …
Well it's that time of year for academics (at least those on a semester system) when we begin another term of teaching and learning. This Fall I am somewhat officially retired from full-time teaching (if the university had started me sooner it would be official) but I am back teaching my Foundations course. Towards the …
Complaints, complaints... The Olympics are typically a boom time for jingoism: patriotic fervor heightening among Americans of all stripes with each gold medal for Team USA. But this year, we’ve seen an unlikely faction of Americans rooting against our athletes: conservatives. Griping about this is rich: for years those on the left have complained about …
Continue reading "Unpatriotic Conservatives? You Asked For It"
Thirty years ago this month, the Cold War ended with a failed coup in Moscow. As was remarked by many at the time, Marx’s dictum that history repeats…America has become its worst enemy
This past week my wife and I had the chance to attend the International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, DC. It was an interesting conference on a subject that gets the short shrift these days. In attendance were representatives of several religions including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and many others. The fact that any kind …
We're "back to the future" on this one: On July 4 this year, liberal media declared independence from America’s most treasured cultural symbols.While media undermining of Independence Day itself is not new — Vox famously declared that “the American Revolution was a mistake” in 2019 — the hand-wringing reached a new pitch this year. Ever …
In recent history, the United States has arguably never been so divided — but not in the way you might think. Yes, the country has been split by the culture wars, with their polarising focus on race and gender. 1,333 more wordsThe battle between the two Americas
When The Atlantic notes it, it's a problem: Right now we are lurching into another of our periodic crises over drinking, and both tendencies are on display at once. Since the turn of the millennium, alcohol consumption has risen steadily, in a reversal of its long decline throughout the 1980s and ’90s. Before the pandemic, …
An interesting observation by Tim Keller: The second influence impoverishing the modern practice of forgiveness is a rising shame and honour culture that some have called a new secular religion. According to Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning, the therapeutic culture has converted us into a collection of “self-actualizers,” whose primary concern is to get respect …
