“Whether one agrees with none, some, or all of their policy prescriptions, Tightrope approaches the status of a must-read.“
From the Center
Political Interviews – The Latest
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On the Record: Past Interviews
Category: The Center
Kristof and WuDunn’s “Tightrope”: an Essential Book
Slavoj Žižek, Leszek Kołakowski, and the Ontological Gap
“I would argue that we must vigilantly guard against viewing ourselves as gods or otherwise infusing and inflating our fallible natures and politics with a divine authority.”
Escaping Tumblr
“I was also on Tumblr with an agenda. Over the past ten months, I had stumbled deeper and deeper into the neurodiversity movement, which frames autism as an identity as well as a disability and blames society for ‘oppressing’ autistics.”
A Brief History of Nothing
“Historically, human beings worshipped gods or God; modern secular man worships Nothing.”
Blowing Up “The Big White Ghetto”
“Williamson puts his finger on a certain, pervasive resignation that hobbles so many lower-class Americans—a resignation that must be explicitly attacked if our nation is to live up to its promises…”
Can a Constitution of Genius Work for a Nation of Imbeciles?
“Ricks writes: ‘In a nutshell, Washington was sensing the limits of virtue as a driver of the new country. He is not often seen as a political philosopher, but in his own quiet way he was ahead of most of his peers.'”
Review: H.R. McMaster’s “Battlegrounds”
“As citizens, though, thankfully we can do more than just hope. We can engage in the sort of good-faith, learned analysis which General McMaster has provided us in Battlegrounds.”
Grant McCracken: Why We Need to Bring Back Honor
“I studied Elizabethan England as a graduate student. It was a society governed by ideas of honor, and I thought, ‘Wow. Maybe some of those ideas could be returned to usefulness.'”
Casting Spells: the Enduring Allure of Leftist Mysticism
“In the case of leftist mysticism, the greatest obstacle to this transformation appears to be human nature, which, in part, explains the bloody reality of socialism and communism.”
The Center Must Hold
“Having engaged with Schlesinger’s thinking, readers should ask themselves: Here in the 21st century, what are the greatest threats to the liberal democratic project at home and abroad?”
The Monstrosity of Gnosticism
“Milbank is perhaps correct, then, in seeing that Žižek is so heterodox in his reading that he has crossed the Rubicon into something detached from the stream of Christian thought.”
Is the American Economy Significantly Different than Europeans Think?
“Do you realize how strange it is that professionals can move around Europe more freely than they can in the U.S.? And that overall, Alabama has more autonomy over its regulations than France does?”
What Is a Cult, Anyway?
“The word ‘cult’ is tossed around quite frequently in media, but few can offer a precise definition.”
Review: Carlos Lozada’s “What Were We Thinking”
“Lozada’s book provides a comprehensive, incisive analysis of the intellectual debates that defined the Trump-era. As we plunge forward into a post-Trump presidency politics, it is a must read.”
Finding Hope When All Seems Lost
“The alarming juxtaposition is that on the other side of this brick wall were patients dying from malaria and children being born with HIV. However, the sheer joy and optimism of this village was unbreakable and, in every sense, unexplainable.”
