The End of Capitalism
Essay - “For Herbert Marcuse, German philosopher and notorious member of the Frankfurt School, Marx did us a service in trying to expose capitalism as a historically-contingent mode of production based on reified social relations that do not facilitate—in fact, impede—the harvesting of reason as the path to the flowering of human autonomy, and flourishing.” 7/2/2024
Essay - “For Herbert Marcuse, German philosopher and notorious member of the Frankfurt School, Marx did us a service in trying to expose capitalism as a historically-contingent mode of production based on reified social relations that do not facilitate—in fact, impede—the harvesting of reason as the path to the flowering of human autonomy, and flourishing.” 7/2/2024When Glen Campbell Sang “Galveston”
Essay - “But with that said, what has always bothered me about the story told in ‘Galveston’ is that there seems to be so much of life left unruminated over, a fact remediated only slightly by the mention of the seascape at the end of the song (and ‘the sea waves crashing’ in the Campbell version).” 6/30/2024
Essay - “But with that said, what has always bothered me about the story told in ‘Galveston’ is that there seems to be so much of life left unruminated over, a fact remediated only slightly by the mention of the seascape at the end of the song (and ‘the sea waves crashing’ in the Campbell version).” 6/30/2024Jordan Peterson, Martin Heidegger, and the Inescapability of Stories
Essay - “But Heidegger and Peterson differ when it comes to the origin of our stories, the meaning of nihilism, and the limits to the stories we can tell. To begin, it is useful to explore the question of the origins of our stories. In both Peterson and Heidegger, there is talk of something coming from nothing.” 6/29/2024
Essay - “But Heidegger and Peterson differ when it comes to the origin of our stories, the meaning of nihilism, and the limits to the stories we can tell. To begin, it is useful to explore the question of the origins of our stories. In both Peterson and Heidegger, there is talk of something coming from nothing.” 6/29/2024Factors of the War in Ukraine
Essay - “Instead of a ‘police operation’ to capture the former colony, Russia got a full-scale protracted war for which it was simply not prepared.” 6/20/2024
Essay - “Instead of a ‘police operation’ to capture the former colony, Russia got a full-scale protracted war for which it was simply not prepared.” 6/20/2024Wrangling Our Political Herds: Upholding Intellectual Standards, No Matter Who Gets Angry
Essay - “It may sound naïve in a time of intense political polarization, but in It’s Debatable I make a case for more humility and a bit of hubris. We need to be willing to argue with passion for our political positions but at the same time remember our limitations.” 6/18/2024
Essay - “It may sound naïve in a time of intense political polarization, but in It’s Debatable I make a case for more humility and a bit of hubris. We need to be willing to argue with passion for our political positions but at the same time remember our limitations.” 6/18/2024In Reply to Walter Block: Relocation Must Be Off the Table
Essay - “It is not particularly interesting that I disagree with Block’s argument. I am a bleeding-heart left-winger who thinks every human being has a right to healthcare, housing, education, and much more…The interesting part is that [his arguments] fly in the face of the values he cares about.” 6/10/2024
Essay - “It is not particularly interesting that I disagree with Block’s argument. I am a bleeding-heart left-winger who thinks every human being has a right to healthcare, housing, education, and much more…The interesting part is that [his arguments] fly in the face of the values he cares about.” 6/10/2024Aprinism: A Worldview Essay - “As mentioned, comparisons with other life-forms are often useful for understanding our human existence. Accordingly, I have derived the word ‘Aprinism’ from the Latin ‘aprinus,’ meaning ‘boar-like.'” 6/5/2024
Essay - “As mentioned, comparisons with other life-forms are often useful for understanding our human existence. Accordingly, I have derived the word ‘Aprinism’ from the Latin ‘aprinus,’ meaning ‘boar-like.'” 6/5/2024When the Elites Declare War Essay - “Show trials, we had thought, were totalitarian relics, a blunt tool wielded by dictators like Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong in order to show people, quite literally, what would happen to those who dared to defy the regime. And here it was, happening in 2024, in America.” 6/3/2024
Essay - “Show trials, we had thought, were totalitarian relics, a blunt tool wielded by dictators like Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong in order to show people, quite literally, what would happen to those who dared to defy the regime. And here it was, happening in 2024, in America.” 6/3/2024On the Music of John Prine Essay - “For me, though, there is one Prine song I find the most philosophical, though many of his songs do indeed have that bent…The song is ‘Fish and Whistle,’ the first track on his 1978 album Bruised Orange…” 6/2/2024
Essay - “For me, though, there is one Prine song I find the most philosophical, though many of his songs do indeed have that bent…The song is ‘Fish and Whistle,’ the first track on his 1978 album Bruised Orange…” 6/2/2024J.S. Mill: Equiliberal
Essay - “For [Patrick] Deneen, the most nefarious influence in the history of liberal political thought is John Stuart Mill, son of Enlightenment radical James Mill, godson of utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, and the author of the canonical 1859 liberal text, On Liberty.” 5/31/2024
Essay - “For [Patrick] Deneen, the most nefarious influence in the history of liberal political thought is John Stuart Mill, son of Enlightenment radical James Mill, godson of utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, and the author of the canonical 1859 liberal text, On Liberty.” 5/31/2024Chasing Immortality, Living on the Edge: A Review of “Transhuman Citizen,” the Biography of Zoltan Istvan Essay - “Although the project to end death is clearly important to Istvan, his forthcoming biography, ‘Transhuman Citizen: Zoltan Istvan’s Hunt for Immortality’ by Ben Murnane, reveals that he has arguably lived his life in response to a related but slightly different question…” 5/30/2024
Essay - “Although the project to end death is clearly important to Istvan, his forthcoming biography, ‘Transhuman Citizen: Zoltan Istvan’s Hunt for Immortality’ by Ben Murnane, reveals that he has arguably lived his life in response to a related but slightly different question…” 5/30/2024You Actually Do Co-Parent with the Government, So Make It Co-Parent Better
Essay - “Although pithy and pugnacious, the slogan is wrong. The moment parents drop a child off at the schoolhouse door, they entrust the school to take over some of their parenting responsibilities.” 5/28/2024
Essay - “Although pithy and pugnacious, the slogan is wrong. The moment parents drop a child off at the schoolhouse door, they entrust the school to take over some of their parenting responsibilities.” 5/28/2024Commodification in America: Old and New
Essay - “And yet, today, we continue to engage in various forms of commodifying the human person, even if they are less visibly brutal and bloody.” 5/22/2024
Essay - “And yet, today, we continue to engage in various forms of commodifying the human person, even if they are less visibly brutal and bloody.” 5/22/2024On Not Responding to Email Essay - “Henry David Thoreau, writing in 1854, remarked: ‘I never received more than one or two letters in my life…that were worth the postage.’ What would he make of the modern email inbox?” 5/19/2024
Essay - “Henry David Thoreau, writing in 1854, remarked: ‘I never received more than one or two letters in my life…that were worth the postage.’ What would he make of the modern email inbox?” 5/19/2024Review: “The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs” by David Runciman Essay - “The Handover is, at bottom, a plea for liberal democratic states to discipline, if not disempower, the sociopaths and psychopaths who currently have control of the technologies and resources which are changing us and our environment and promise to change both ourselves and the planet we inhabit more radically still.” 5/16/2024
Essay - “The Handover is, at bottom, a plea for liberal democratic states to discipline, if not disempower, the sociopaths and psychopaths who currently have control of the technologies and resources which are changing us and our environment and promise to change both ourselves and the planet we inhabit more radically still.” 5/16/2024All University Protests Must Stop, Period
Essay - “Holding myself to this standard, I am comfortable in saying that in each and every one of those scenarios, my view would be unchanged: The protests, all the university protests, must be stopped.” 5/13/2024
Essay - “Holding myself to this standard, I am comfortable in saying that in each and every one of those scenarios, my view would be unchanged: The protests, all the university protests, must be stopped.” 5/13/2024“The Rhapsodic Fallacy” and Maurice Manning’s “Snakedoctor” Essay - “The ‘free’ in ‘free verse’ was never meant as a free pass, an anything goes, for to succumb to it does, in fact, leave us standing in a well-intentioned mush.” 5/12/2024
Essay - “The ‘free’ in ‘free verse’ was never meant as a free pass, an anything goes, for to succumb to it does, in fact, leave us standing in a well-intentioned mush.” 5/12/2024Critiquing Stoicism
Essay - “However, my impression is that there is something more fundamentally toxic about Stoicism. In line with [Will] Durant’s assessment, its dominant theme seems to be retreat: retreat from unpleasant emotion into indifference (despite protestations to the contrary)…” 5/10/2024
Essay - “However, my impression is that there is something more fundamentally toxic about Stoicism. In line with [Will] Durant’s assessment, its dominant theme seems to be retreat: retreat from unpleasant emotion into indifference (despite protestations to the contrary)…” 5/10/2024A Dangerous Partnership: the Managerial Revolution and the Immigration Revolution
Essay - “New populations moving into a country creates ready-made client groups to which the managerial state can administer, gaining new voting blocs, which continue to vote for the party of the managerial state.” 5/9/2024
Essay - “New populations moving into a country creates ready-made client groups to which the managerial state can administer, gaining new voting blocs, which continue to vote for the party of the managerial state.” 5/9/2024Nitazene: Scenes From Britain’s Struggle with a Powerful New Drug Essay - “Meanwhile, the death toll rises. John told me he was 44—the same age as me—when we first met. That is just under the average age of death for homeless men in Britain. This is more than 30 years shorter than the country’s average male life expectancy.” 5/5/2024
Essay - “Meanwhile, the death toll rises. John told me he was 44—the same age as me—when we first met. That is just under the average age of death for homeless men in Britain. This is more than 30 years shorter than the country’s average male life expectancy.” 5/5/2024Too Many Excuses for Tyrants
Essay - “Despite all of this, [Robert D.] Kaplan’s analysis of the greater Middle East should not be ignored. His travels throughout this vast region across the decades give him insights into its diverse challenges that few Americans possess.” 5/3/2024
Essay - “Despite all of this, [Robert D.] Kaplan’s analysis of the greater Middle East should not be ignored. His travels throughout this vast region across the decades give him insights into its diverse challenges that few Americans possess.” 5/3/2024In Defense of the Bugmen Essay - “But I am not interested in chiding Bronze Age Pervert—as other publications, such as National Review, have done—for his use of dehumanization. Instead, I want to offer a full-throated defense of these nasty bugmen.” 5/2/2024
Essay - “But I am not interested in chiding Bronze Age Pervert—as other publications, such as National Review, have done—for his use of dehumanization. Instead, I want to offer a full-throated defense of these nasty bugmen.” 5/2/2024Irregular Beats: The Surprising Politics of Kerouac, Burroughs, and Ginsberg
Essay - “It is hard to say whether this philosophy would have had any adherents other than Kerouac, but it would have represented something new and uplifting—a counterculture to the counterculture.” 4/30/2024
Essay - “It is hard to say whether this philosophy would have had any adherents other than Kerouac, but it would have represented something new and uplifting—a counterculture to the counterculture.” 4/30/2024Rescuing Religion from Atheism Essay - “It seems, then, that religious practice is beneficial but unpalatable to many highly analytical people because they deem religious doctrines unpersuasive. The question therefore arises how one can make it palatable to them.” 4/21/2024
Essay - “It seems, then, that religious practice is beneficial but unpalatable to many highly analytical people because they deem religious doctrines unpersuasive. The question therefore arises how one can make it palatable to them.” 4/21/2024By the Known Rules of Ancient Liberty: A Review of Masha Karp’s “George Orwell and Russia” Essay - “Lest I should have appeared overly critical, allow me to restate that even in this, her analysis is exceptional and that overall, George Orwell and Russia is a uniquely penetrating study of Eric Blair’s life and legacy.” 4/19/2024
Essay - “Lest I should have appeared overly critical, allow me to restate that even in this, her analysis is exceptional and that overall, George Orwell and Russia is a uniquely penetrating study of Eric Blair’s life and legacy.” 4/19/2024Reckoning with Medicine’s Unseemly Past
Essay - “How does such an advanced nation and forward-looking profession embrace ‘medicalized mass murder’ and a philosophy calling for the ‘annihilation of life unworthy of living’? How did those who pledged to follow ‘the Hippocratic tradition of healers,’ they ask, ‘become killers’?” 4/16/2024
Essay - “How does such an advanced nation and forward-looking profession embrace ‘medicalized mass murder’ and a philosophy calling for the ‘annihilation of life unworthy of living’? How did those who pledged to follow ‘the Hippocratic tradition of healers,’ they ask, ‘become killers’?” 4/16/2024Lessons from Machiavelli and Guicciardini for an Unstable World
Essay - “The world is in flux. November’s elections in the United States will speed up the pace of change. There is a danger that politicians across the West are positioning themselves to govern a world that will no longer exist by the time they come to power.” 4/13/2024
Essay - “The world is in flux. November’s elections in the United States will speed up the pace of change. There is a danger that politicians across the West are positioning themselves to govern a world that will no longer exist by the time they come to power.” 4/13/2024People over Place: Reviewing “The Culture Transplant” by Garett Jones
Essay - “Any serious government would, therefore, develop and implement immigration policy with the utmost care. Instead, our governments are experimenting with unprecedented peacetime increases in immigration that further expand ethnic and cultural diversity.” 4/8/2024
Essay - “Any serious government would, therefore, develop and implement immigration policy with the utmost care. Instead, our governments are experimenting with unprecedented peacetime increases in immigration that further expand ethnic and cultural diversity.” 4/8/2024Review: “A Web of Our Own Making: The Nature of Digital Formation” by Antón Barba-Kay Essay - “Barba-Kay’s central claim is that digital technology is categorically different from prior technologies. It is not just a matter of degree but, rather, a matter of kind.” 4/1/2024
Essay - “Barba-Kay’s central claim is that digital technology is categorically different from prior technologies. It is not just a matter of degree but, rather, a matter of kind.” 4/1/2024The Jewish People Are Both Middle Eastern and European
Essay - “Given that the Middle East used to be far more ‘Western’ and even ‘European’ than it is now, there is no cultural disconnect between ‘Western’ and ‘Middle Eastern’ Jews. Jews can be both at once.” 3/30/2024
Essay - “Given that the Middle East used to be far more ‘Western’ and even ‘European’ than it is now, there is no cultural disconnect between ‘Western’ and ‘Middle Eastern’ Jews. Jews can be both at once.” 3/30/2024In Defense of TikTok Essay - “Like most members of Generation X, I had never used TikTok, but when the political push to ban it intensified in 2023, I pulled out an old smartphone and installed TikTok to see what the fuss was all about.” 3/29/2024
Essay - “Like most members of Generation X, I had never used TikTok, but when the political push to ban it intensified in 2023, I pulled out an old smartphone and installed TikTok to see what the fuss was all about.” 3/29/2024Not All Self-Immolations Are Made Equal Essay - “Aaron Bushnell was not a hero or a martyr akin to the self-immolators of anti-imperial conflicts past; he was likely a mentally ill, terminally online man in his mid-20s who was in a lot of pain that he transposed onto a conflict halfway around the world that in no way personally affected him.” 3/24/2024
Essay - “Aaron Bushnell was not a hero or a martyr akin to the self-immolators of anti-imperial conflicts past; he was likely a mentally ill, terminally online man in his mid-20s who was in a lot of pain that he transposed onto a conflict halfway around the world that in no way personally affected him.” 3/24/2024Mass Immigration and the American Nation Essay - “The monthly encounters under President Biden have been like nothing else seen in American history. There are estimates that, in 2023, there were more illegal alien encounters per month than babies born to American mothers.” 3/22/2024
Essay - “The monthly encounters under President Biden have been like nothing else seen in American history. There are estimates that, in 2023, there were more illegal alien encounters per month than babies born to American mothers.” 3/22/2024Grappling with Liberalism
Essay - “Modern liberalism, equally, cannot go on as it is at the moment, veering toward destruction, becoming ever more decrepit and ineffectual, incapable of meeting the challenges—domestic, geopolitical, planetary—of the 21st century.” 3/21/2024
Essay - “Modern liberalism, equally, cannot go on as it is at the moment, veering toward destruction, becoming ever more decrepit and ineffectual, incapable of meeting the challenges—domestic, geopolitical, planetary—of the 21st century.” 3/21/2024What an International Environmentalist Movement Misunderstands Essay - “Scientific progress has the potential to be more salutory than legal regulation. To return to Odin’s advice in the Hávamál once more, the power of the human mind is mankind’s most reliable ally.” 3/8/2024
Essay - “Scientific progress has the potential to be more salutory than legal regulation. To return to Odin’s advice in the Hávamál once more, the power of the human mind is mankind’s most reliable ally.” 3/8/2024