“Idealists, in order to change the systems in which they exist, must usually remain in that system.”
Political Interviews – The Latest
Latest from the Arts
Latest Book Review
On the Record: Past Interviews
Category: The Left
Knowing Which “Hill to Die On”
Joe Biden: the New Face for Much of the Same on Immigration
“Democrats have long gotten away with murder this way, shaking migrant hands in public view while mercilessly oppressing them out of sight.”
Nicholas Kristof Discusses “Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope”
“One of the reasons our anti-poverty efforts in America don’t do better is we start too late. We need to help kids early on.”
Taking an Oath upon the Constitution, Rather than the Bible
“While laws do not and absolutely should not regulate a politician’s religious practices, the time and place for these practices is not when taking an oath of office.”
An Alternative Take on Cancel Culture
“But this, in my view, has little to do with people being overly sensitive and much more to with the very economic system that conservative critics of cancel culture regularly prop up.”
Wes Jackson: How to Respect One’s Tools
“I’m Robert Jensen. I’ll be your guide into the restless and relentless mind of Wes Jackson. I first bumped into Wes’ work more than three decades ago, and his ideas have had a profound influence on my thinking about society and ecology.”
When Conservative Christians Invoke Nietzsche
“Given this, we can recognize that Nietzsche would have seen layers of irony in these contemporary conservative figures appealing to his ideas to critique contemporary socialists…while simultaneously expressing concern about declining Christian values.”
When Discussing Loan Forgiveness, There’s More Than Just Student Debt
“Relief that starts and stops with student loans is merely distracting from larger issues.”
Kant: the Greatest Liberal Philosopher?
“So what, then, makes someone a liberal? In this piece, I am going to argue that the philosophy of Immanuel Kant provides some clues.”
Social Media and the Fraught Question of Regulation
“But, with that said, many of the problems that are blamed on social media run much deeper and require broader societal solutions than just legal controls on social media.”
How to Honor the Legacy of Michael Brooks
“When it comes to theorizing about cosmopolitan socialism, Michael, unfortunately, passed on before he could spell out the details. However, we can infer much from his criticisms of conservative histories.”
Our First Year without Roger Scruton
“At his best, Scruton was a panoramic thinker of formidable intellect who puts to shame many of the lesser polemicists who have followed in his giant footsteps.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein: a Post-Modern Philosopher?
“Struck by this realization, Wittgenstein insisted that the best thing now was simply to stop doing philosophy and to try and find in life what could not be said with certainty.”
Alfie Bown: Where Politics and Gaming Meet
“I think there’s great potential in video games. In some ways, they are the primary space in which the culture wars are now being fought.”
Thomas Ricks: Politics, as Seen from Aristotle to Trump
“And so I remembered from college: When you’re facing a problem that seems deeply puzzling, go back to fundamentals, go to first principles. So I took Aristotle’s Politics off my shelf, my old college copy, and reread it in the context of the election of Donald Trump.”
