You Can (and Perhaps Should) Repeat Yourself by Erich J. Prince Essay - “And, relatedly, one also begins to wonder if there are certain ways of phrasing the key points that have already been formulated, capture them perfectly, and, thus, cannot really be improved upon.” (10/1/2024)
Reading Samuel Moyn’s “Liberalism Against Itself” in an Election Year by Nigel Lloyd Alcorn Essay - “It becomes apparent that, while not a Marxist himself, Moyn regrets Marxism’s arguable descent into irrelevance, if only because its extended dialogue with liberalism enriched the latter while spotlighting liberal failings and hypocrisies.” (9/30/2024)
The Paradox of Capitalism by Jonathan Church Essay - “For example, how many retirees can relate to Jack Nicholson’s professional exile in About Schmidt, a film about a man trying to find purpose after a career as an actuary, when the title character returns to the office one day in a pathetic last-ditch effort to show he is still relevant?” (9/27/2024)
Darryl Cooper: Revisionist History and Misplaced Empathy by Alexander von Sternberg Essay - “Perhaps it is because of my own bias toward [Darryl Cooper as a friend, but the responsibility for such imprecise talk is something I place on [Tucker] Carlson, not on his interview subject.” (9/26/2024)
Bruce Springsteen Turns 75 by Erich J. Prince Essay - “It is just Springsteen and his sparse vocals seeming to sing out into the empty expanse of the American West and its sprawling landscapes where hope—at least until the final track—is nowhere to be found. One can feel it was recorded in winter.” (9/23/2024)
Mythos Americanos: Who Took the Grit out of Integrity? by Michael Boughn Essay - “Trying to nail down the source of the intensity of my response, I kept coming back to a sense of a deep, existential nostalgia for what I could only think of as integrity.” (9/17/2024)
Why Transhumanism Is Unrealistic and Immoral by Wesley J. Smith Essay - “Utopians often produce evil because their movement’s aspirations become paramount—that is, more important than avoiding acts ‘traditionally perceived as immoral.’ If enough people follow Istvan on the transhuman roller coaster, people could eventually get hurt.” (9/3/2024)
Portrait of a Stubborn Ukrainian by Dave Smith Essay - “He was flanked by fields of dead sunflowers that could not be harvested because of the renewed Russian offensive.” (8/29/2024)
The Hidden Obstacles of Parenting from Prison by Antoine E. Davis Essay - “But enhancing the experience of children with incarcerated parents does not require a wholesale restructuring of prisons. Most parents in prison desperately want more contact with their kids, hoping to break the destructive cycles they have been caught in.” (8/23/2024)
Optimism vs. Reality in Longevity Science: Analyzing Zoltan Istvan’s Senescence Inference by Peter Clarke Essay - “Although [Zoltan] Istvan’s general pessimism is understandable, the Senescence Inference takes the pessimism too far for a number of reasons.” (8/11/2024)
When We’re Overly Optimistic about the Pace of Life Extension Research  by Zoltan Istvan Essay - “Sadly, biological humans are likely to be mortal for centuries more unless a dramatic increase in both resources and life extension scientists is marshaled.” (8/1/2024)
The Danger in NATO’s Slow Attrition Strategy in Ukraine by Julian Spencer-Churchill and Alexandru Filip Essay - “Aside from the hazard of China or Iran adding to the number of ongoing wars, the currently slow attrition strategy is only working against President Putin because he is trapped.” (7/26/2024)
Our Fractured Togetherness: The Political Realism of Lynn Nottage by Lewis Fallis Essay - “Given the depth and severity of the divisions displayed in Sweat, we are led to wonder if healing is even possible. But as a ‘doctor of American democracy,’ [Lynn] Nottage not only offers troubling diagnoses of our diseases but also prescribes remedies.” (7/25/2024)
On the Idea of National Decline by Alexander Zubatov Essay - “It is, I believe, more than anything else, the undeniable reality of technological progress that lulls us into accepting the more general—and plainly false—proposition that things will just keep on improving in every respect.” (7/23/2024)
The Triumph of Eros Over Thanatos: The Imperishable Beauty of “Holding the Man” by Daniel Sharp Essay - “In short, I am in love with the story of Tim and John. It has enchanted and devastated me for years now, which is why I will use their first names.“ (7/19/2024)
The Taliban Dilemma: How to Engage with Those Whose Values We Oppose by Andy Owen Essay - “In this instance, should those who believe in the rights of women sit down with those who do not, potentially risking legitimizing groups like the Taliban, in the hope that through dialogue they can influence them?” (7/18/2024)
This is England? Thoughts on Nigel Farage and Keir Starmer by Seamus Flaherty Essay - “Prime Minister Starmer’s father wanted his children to lead ‘useful lives’ and Starmer undoubtedly succeeded in that—two, three, four times over. Yet it is unclear, as yet, just how useful he will be as Labour Prime Minister.” (7/16/2024)
The French Election and Europe’s Post-Historical Collapse by Benedict Beckeld Essay - “While I was always a philosopher, I was originally a fairly apolitical one, and it was my first year in France that awoke the political part of my being, for I saw all around me where socialism, oikophobia, and multiculturalism were leading.” (7/10/2024)
The Power of Chicken Soup for the Anti-Woke Soul: Nellie Bowles’s “Morning After the Revolution” by Peter Clarke Essay - “While it might be intellectually fascinating to dig into the Marxist or postmodern roots of wokeness, Bowles’s book is a welcome reminder that sometimes things are simply crazy on their face. And maybe all that is required to defeat the crazy is to point it out.” (7/8/2024)
Why I Stand by Relocation: A Rejoinder to Ben Burgis by Walter E. Block Essay - “To kick him or them out of the country would indeed be to violate the non-aggression principle (NAP) of this strict version of libertarianism. But I do not always write from this point of view. Sometimes, often in my writings on Israel, I do so from the perspective of classical liberalism…” (7/6/2024)
Was Chamberlain Actually More Strategic than Churchill, Roosevelt, and Biden? by Julian Spencer-Churchill Essay - “Prime Minister Chamberlain’s premature death in 1940 and his transformation into a cautionary tale has meant that he was not available to remind his successors that appeasement was just one-facet of a multi-dimensional diplomatic strategy.” (7/5/2024)
The End of Capitalism by Jonathan Church 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)
When Glen Campbell Sang “Galveston” by Erich J. Prince 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)
Jordan Peterson, Martin Heidegger, and the Inescapability of Stories by J. Michael Yarros 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)
Factors of the War in Ukraine by Dmitrii Ershov 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)
Wrangling Our Political Herds: Upholding Intellectual Standards, No Matter Who Gets Angry by Robert Jensen 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)
In Reply to Walter Block: Relocation Must Be Off the Table by Ben Burgis 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)
Aprinism: A Worldview by Simon Maass 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)
When the Elites Declare War by Alexander Zubatov 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)
On the Music of John Prine by Erich J. Prince 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)
J.S. Mill: Equiliberal by Seamus Flaherty 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)
Chasing Immortality, Living on the Edge: A Review of “Transhuman Citizen,” the Biography of Zoltan Istvan by Peter Clarke 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)
You Actually Do Co-Parent with the Government, So Make It Co-Parent Better by David Ferrero 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)
Commodification in America: Old and New by Casey Chalk 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)
On Not Responding to Email by Erich J. Prince 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)