The Places Where Patrick Deneen and the Left Can Agree
The Left - “I agree with Deneen—and I suspect many others on the Left do too—that the local community is the optimal setting to pursue the good.” 8/4/2020
The Left - “I agree with Deneen—and I suspect many others on the Left do too—that the local community is the optimal setting to pursue the good.” 8/4/2020Why Cancel Culture Won’t Last
The Center - “This is the thing about moral panics—while threatening, they can be illuminating.” 8/3/2020
The Center - “This is the thing about moral panics—while threatening, they can be illuminating.” 8/3/2020Blackface: When Nuance Meets Taboo
The Center - “One of the first lessons my students of undergraduate literary studies learn about text analysis is to distinguish between internal and external communication.” 7/31/2020
The Center - “One of the first lessons my students of undergraduate literary studies learn about text analysis is to distinguish between internal and external communication.” 7/31/2020How Ben Shapiro Might Consider Locke More Carefully
The Left - “Locke’s theoretical arguments prefigured another thinker who had a lot to say about labor and property: Karl Marx.” 7/30/2020
The Left - “Locke’s theoretical arguments prefigured another thinker who had a lot to say about labor and property: Karl Marx.” 7/30/2020Pharmakon II: Sold to the Corporate Libertarian
The Left - “Indeed, economist Thomas Piketty observes that the United States presents for the first time in history a society headed towards extreme inequality, driven not by hyper-patrimony (inherited wealth) but hyper-meritocracy…” 7/29/2020
The Left - “Indeed, economist Thomas Piketty observes that the United States presents for the first time in history a society headed towards extreme inequality, driven not by hyper-patrimony (inherited wealth) but hyper-meritocracy…” 7/29/2020How We Can Finally Put the Reparations Question Behind Us
The Center - “With that in mind, what I want to do below is to advance a proposal that, I think, lets everyone concerned out of this conundrum gracefully.” 7/27/2020
The Center - “With that in mind, what I want to do below is to advance a proposal that, I think, lets everyone concerned out of this conundrum gracefully.” 7/27/2020Innocence, Guilt, and Living with a Disability
The Center - “This puts me in a strange position as someone who can be unequivocally categorized as a victim and yet who has always had a difficult time seeing myself as one.” 7/26/2020
The Center - “This puts me in a strange position as someone who can be unequivocally categorized as a victim and yet who has always had a difficult time seeing myself as one.” 7/26/2020To Be a Caring Conservative
The Right - “All the while, the existing social safety net—combined with various anti-poverty programs—in the United States already provides for our nation’s poor by offering them an adequate standard of living.” 7/23/2020
The Right - “All the while, the existing social safety net—combined with various anti-poverty programs—in the United States already provides for our nation’s poor by offering them an adequate standard of living.” 7/23/2020A Tribute to Michael Brooks
The Left - “It is truly hard to believe that he is gone and that this burgeoning collaboration and friendship will never get the chance to grow.” 7/21/2020
The Left - “It is truly hard to believe that he is gone and that this burgeoning collaboration and friendship will never get the chance to grow.” 7/21/2020Review: Ronald Beiner’s “Dangerous Minds: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Return of the Far Right”
The Left - “During the past few years before, I had struggled with—and then firmly said goodbye to—the Catholicism of my upbringing, and I was searching for a new philosophy of meaning that did not seem to depend on so many leaps of faith.” 7/21/2020
The Left - “During the past few years before, I had struggled with—and then firmly said goodbye to—the Catholicism of my upbringing, and I was searching for a new philosophy of meaning that did not seem to depend on so many leaps of faith.” 7/21/2020Leave Lincoln’s Statues Alone but Engage with His Legacy More Critically
The Center - “Indeed, Michael Scharf reports that ‘Milošević saw himself as a modern-day Abe Lincoln, employing force in a valiant effort to hold his crumbling Yugoslavia together.’” 7/20/2020
The Center - “Indeed, Michael Scharf reports that ‘Milošević saw himself as a modern-day Abe Lincoln, employing force in a valiant effort to hold his crumbling Yugoslavia together.’” 7/20/2020How Sam Harris Changed My Opinion of Jordan Peterson
The Center - “This is why Peterson genuinely believes in Dostoevsky’s eminent saying in The Brothers Karamazov: ‘Without God all things are permitted.'” 7/20/2020
The Center - “This is why Peterson genuinely believes in Dostoevsky’s eminent saying in The Brothers Karamazov: ‘Without God all things are permitted.'” 7/20/2020What “The Merchant of Venice” Has to Say about Justice
The Center - “Just as it was in Shakespeare’s time, the questions of justice, mercy, and society remain as relevant as ever before, and we have much to learn from the great bard of Anglodom.” 7/19/2020
The Center - “Just as it was in Shakespeare’s time, the questions of justice, mercy, and society remain as relevant as ever before, and we have much to learn from the great bard of Anglodom.” 7/19/2020Jorge Luis Borges and the Philosophy of Memory
The Center - “For this reason, Borges’ short story reveals that the human mind is intelligent precisely because it does not recollect too much.” 7/17/2020
The Center - “For this reason, Borges’ short story reveals that the human mind is intelligent precisely because it does not recollect too much.” 7/17/2020The Land of Lost Content
The Center - “As we move forward in the present struggle, where the question of race and religion becomes an endemic part of our theaters of division, we must strive to reject the retributive impulse and embrace what Martha Nussbaum keenly called the ‘rational faith.’” 7/14/2020
The Center - “As we move forward in the present struggle, where the question of race and religion becomes an endemic part of our theaters of division, we must strive to reject the retributive impulse and embrace what Martha Nussbaum keenly called the ‘rational faith.’” 7/14/2020A Reply to Elizabeth Powers: “Woke” Activists and Deconstruction
The Left - “The respective propriety of each strand of said activism must be engaged with on a case-by-case basis, rather than be lumped together with all other causes before being explained away with references to academic trends.” 7/14/2020
The Left - “The respective propriety of each strand of said activism must be engaged with on a case-by-case basis, rather than be lumped together with all other causes before being explained away with references to academic trends.” 7/14/2020