“It is to Continetti’s credit that he develops his narrative after this with fair-minded even-handedness for the most part, even if he lets his own views bleed through in the chapters concerning President Trump’s rise and fall, as well as the mix of grift and genuine intellectual ferment that he dragged in his orange wake.”
Category: The Right
Review: Matthew Continetti’s “The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism”
Review: China Miéville’s “A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto”

“Sentimental and sycophantic in turns, it may be hard to dispel the impression that Miéville is merely a hysteric. All the same, A Spectre, Haunting is a post-Nietzschean book, which leans into the charge of ressentiment. Spurning subterfuge, Miéville quite openly asserts that justice and revenge amount, more or less, to the same thing.”
Peter Buxtun, the Hero of Tuskegee, 50 Years On

“In later interviews, Buxtun would shrug off the accolades he later received for his whistleblowing. ‘I don’t want to be embarrassed by an oversupply of compliments. I am who I am,’ he would tell bioethicist Carl Elliott in 2017.”
Being Critical of Enlightenment Triumphalism Isn’t Always Wrong
“Having considered the evidence, it seems more accurate to say that the Enlightenment project presented itself as a savior from ignorance and poverty but was really a movement to dethrone the old social order rooted in hierarchies and aristocracies.”
The Quarrel within American Conservatism

“The current politics of California, which more than any other American state has been shaped by mass immigration from Mexico, should likewise shake the confidence of conservatives who scoff at the alleged illiberalism of immigration hawks.”
Limits in a World That Erases Them
“There is a paradox to life that an acceptance of limits, borders, and boundaries can be the most liberating thing of all.”
Young Americans for Liberty: An Interview with CEO Lauren Daugherty
“Ron Paul is so beloved because he is so principled. That is what we are focused on here. We will work with other people who share our interests, but we’re not going to sacrifice our principles to do it.”
Review: “Conservatism: A Rediscovery” by Yoram Hazony
“In my own life, being disabled and living with an acute example of life’s predicament means that the worldview Hazony describes and prescribes has made far more sense and has offered far more consolation than liberalism ever could.”
Review: “Obedience is Freedom” by Jacob Phillips

“Denial, as Jacob Phillips deftly shows in his fascinating and staggeringly original new book Obedience is Freedom, is precisely what the liberal-left excels in, substituting for a world of limits and constraints a schizoid universe where subjectivity is all that counts.”
Cancel Culture and the Tolerance of the Natural Aristocracy

“To really thrive in our own communities, we need more than just Law and Order; a strong social fabric is required that encourages virtuous behavior as much as it punishes delinquency.”
Review: “Don’t Burn This Country” by Dave Rubin
“This book undoubtedly represents an evolution in Rubin’s thinking, and contrary to those who accuse him of changing to suit others, changing one’s mind on philosophical beliefs is not automatically a disqualification.”
The Term Woke Is Losing Its Punch

“It was a linguistic indication that revolutionary consciousness had made ‘the long march through the institutions.'”
The Pandemic and the Scientific Gnostics

“As Deneen says, Voegelin ‘argued that modern Gnosticism was an effort to ‘redivinize’ the political world—not now by bringing the gods in to the service of the city, but by making the city into a heaven on earth.'”
Neither Putin Nor Russia Are “Based”

“For a start, American conservatives are either unaware of or ignore that Russia has the highest abortion rate in the world and the third highest divorce rate.”
Children of Men: Are Birth Rates Declining Due to Anti-natalism or Economics?
“For the first time ever, more than half of women aged 30 in England and Wales are childless. This is not a normative condemnation but a descriptive statement.”