“And so things continue as before, because in a post-historical era, sprinkled with German-Hegelian state worship and a view of oneself as the summit of civilizational development, there is no need to move from the spot one has occupied.”
“I was born in the 1990s, into one of the countless middle-class Indian families that were sprouting like saplings after the rains, in the wake of the 1991 economic reforms. India was shaking off the dust of its socialist decades and finding its footing in a world suddenly wider and freer.”
“Five years later, Orwell published an essay called ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War,’ in which he states, ‘War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil.’”
“If a stranger comes around, if he’s wise, he will keep to the road and announce his business soon, clearly and loudly, then you’ll see what’s what. You’re not against him, but you’re not automatically for him.”
“Similarly distinct from the regular life-world is the world of academic theory, in which, as in the fantasy world, theoretical constructs are often divorced from any dependency on practical outcomes.”
“As Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said on the White House lawn in 1993 during the Oslo Accords, the progenitor initiative of what is required exactly now: ‘Enough of blood and tears. Enough.”
“Charles Krauthammer used to pride himself on not going to cocktail parties, instead preferring to be at home with his wife quietly reading, writing, doing whatever. And he was probably better for it.”
“And as she lay on her death bed, as she must have felt a cancerous tumor slowly taking her life, she would also have looked around her and seen the stern and damaged but also joyous legacy she would leave behind.”
“Admirably, Dawkins continually made it clear that his objective was to promote a clear understanding of the world as discovered through the scientific method, and if scientific facts caused offense with anyone, then so be it.”
“Bringing this back to the United States: While we need to address our current housing crisis, the goal should not be to build, build, build anywhere at any cost.”
“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.”
“The change with After Virtue, however, is that in an important sense [MacIntyre] turns against modernity as a whole. He argues that the move to modernity involves the destruction of morality—that in modernity we no longer know what we’re talking about when we deploy moral language.”
“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.”
“Political violence, particularly against minorities, has no place in a democracy. However, neglecting the undeniable social and cultural repercussions of mass immigration is a grave mistake that only serves to empower the hard right.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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…”
“In Carlin’s time, it was edgy and cool to push back against the prudish ideas about obscenity, so playing with the boundaries of the metanarrative was practically encouraged (at least from audiences). Today, quite the opposite.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“As a result, an air of fear hangs over society, regardless of the fact that the likelihood of falling victim to such an attack is very low indeed. But this is how terror works.”
“According to the most recent data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only 24% of eighth and 12th graders are ‘proficient’ in writing.”
“The History of the Peloponnesian War teaches that victory in such a war comes at enormous cost to both sides, so much so it can blur the distinction between victor and loser: everyone loses. This is the same lesson the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza impart.”
“Is there anyone who can give a clear definition of Leftist or Rightist doctrine with which even half of those who consider themselves to be on the Left or the Right would agree? I am inclined to doubt it…”
“However, outside of the contemporary United States and United Kingdom, a look at the composition of certain right-of-center political movements casts doubt on the reflexive association many hold between young people and voting for the Left.”
“Refusing to take the path of least resistance when it comes to his career, Morrissey is the antithesis of the cookie-cutter ‘artists’ favored and propped up by the modern music industry.”
“However, there was one man who positioned himself very early on as an opponent to this growing Jewish presence in his homeland. This man was Haj Amin al-Husseini, who, in 1921, became the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.”
“When privileging science and math in the curriculum at the expense of the humanities, education sacrifices what is most essential: the important civic function of the humanities. As a result, we produce ‘a nation of employees, not citizens.’”
“Many Europeans are waking up to the failures of multiculturalism and open-border policies and are demanding action. If the parties of the center left and center right continue to fail on this front, someone else will step in.”
“There is a formula—unfortunately, I have noticed—when it comes to many in the reality-denying national press: Make a few accurate micro-points but use them to arrive at a conclusion that no reasonable person should believe.”
“The hyper-masculine environment of a prison creates additional impediments. Inmates fear that any sign of weakness might lead another inmate to take advantage, another reason not to speak openly with others. Sexual abuse is at the top of the list of things prisoners will not talk about.”
“The most common precursor of gender dysphoria, though, seems to be intense social media use. The gender dysphoria more often seems to stem from that rather than from the home.”
“As my co-author Kai Whiting and I argue in an upcoming book…free speech debates have become not simply a matter of whether or to what extent certain ideas should be banished from the public domain, but why, how, and for whom they should be restricted.”
“The stated North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) objective in Afghanistan was nation-building, but what was created instead, over 20 years, and fell in days, was a heavily garrisoned foreign aid bazaar.”
“As a patient, I do not want to hold hands with a robot and confide my health problems to a faceless entity. As a doctor, a patient, and a human being, I reject the currently shattered doctor-patient relationship.”
“Humphrey’s insurgency at the convention basically lashed Truman to the mast of [Humphrey’s] own civil rights agenda. And desegregating the armed forces was arguably the single most important civil rights cause of that moment in time.”
“America’s K-12 schools typically provide little information to young people on potential careers. They also generally do not provide work experiences that help them understand practical pathways to jobs and careers.”
“We live in a world where every conceivable product or service is instantly accessible.”
“We can only hope that Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s approach to politics will be rediscovered. Books like American Burke should function as essential guides in this most necessary search.”
“And whether or not one believes that sex is sacred, it is hard to deny that the porn industry has commodified sex in ways that rid it of all that made it human.”
“Compared to these other negative emotional states, boredom might seem like a trivial complaint. However, boredom can cause real problems if not directed towards healthy and constructive behaviors.”
“Non-racism, thus understood, implies colorblindness, not in the sense of literally not seeing skin color, but in the sense of treating it as insignificant.”
“With 14 million Americans suddenly plunged into indefinite unemployment, has UBI become more popular? It seems like the answer is yes and no.”
“But to me, an observer with intimate knowledge of punk’s radical history, much of today’s woke rhetoric feels like a throwback.”
“Free speech does not enable extremism. Quite the contrary: It is the primary means to challenge wrongheaded attitudes, ideologies, and belief systems.”
Donald Trump rode the politics of power and emotion to the White House. If his opponents continue to respond in kind, he might have killed the politics of principle in the process.
“For Rep. Wild, this bill might also provide a foundation for downstream economic normalization; if child care is more accessible, the argument goes, then it becomes less burdensome for parents to return to work, seek out new potential employment, or continue their own education.”
The United States does not have low voter turnout; Americans actually are asked to vote too much, and this hurts our democracy.
“The problem—as has been said so many times before—is that identity politics takes a kernel of truth about embodied human experience and pushes it to its destructive conclusion.”
“It is not between Red and Blue states; it is a battle about whether there is meaning outside of politics.”
“The holding the powerful accountable phrase resonates as it does—and, presumably, is chosen by the news media’s back-patters—because it is, indeed, precisely what a news media should be doing.”
“Importing these ideas into your sense of self—to think of yourself as a liberal or a conservative—is irrational and corrosive. It is a recipe for error.”
“A civilization that worships at such altars is one that no longer believes in itself, that considers itself irredeemably guilty, sinful or evil…”
“This is the thing about moral panics—while threatening, they can be illuminating.”
“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.”
“Our commitment to the rights of others to express themselves, even if they hold heinous beliefs, is something uniquely American, and it is perhaps the finest piece of our cultural heritage.”
“But this discrepancy makes perfect sense if we consider the tone of racial discourse in the United States for half a second.”
“The religion of Social Justice is redolent of the old paganism but without even the mortal transcendence of its pantheons.”
“When asked to describe Chigurh, the few people lucky enough to have encountered him and survived claimed he that ‘looked like anybody.’”
“Ambiguity, however, is the name of the game when it comes to defining racism, while Whiteness Studies is similarly plagued with ‘critical’ obfuscation.”
“What I left out of that piece are the many questions my immersion has raised whose answers, if I could find them, might help what I’ll call the reasonable unwoke better assess SJ/DEI claims. I would like to air those questions here.”
“With our political and cultural situation having deteriorated far beyond where it was two decades ago, it is my hope that the long-overdue national cleansing and cultural revitalization this pestilence brings in its wake will last.”
“Thucydides subsequently goes on to say, ‘In other respects also Athens owed to the plague the beginnings of a state of unprecedented lawlessness.’”
“COVID-19 presents a unique opportunity for governments to build trust. According to a recent update of the 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer, trust in government around the world spiked by 11 points between January and May 2020.”
“With respect to McManus and Hamilton, who have admittedly produced a very interesting article, there are characterizations and theoretical points within their article that I feel need to be addressed.”
“The lack of backbone displayed by Western leaders when dealing with China is symbolic of the malaise that has been gripping Western culture for decades.”
“I recently met up with an old friend, a staunch Marxist, at a traditional Viennese café to catch up and talk about our political differences. After hours of discussion, he admitted, ‘Well, ultimately, it’s a question of faith.’”
“What follows are examples of topics where SJ/DEI activists have persuaded me, where they haven’t, and where they have led me to fresh, if heterodox, insights.”
“For them, the feelings of guilt over Europe’s past seemed to require inviting in the world to redeem Europe of its sins. Erdoğan is playing on this fear by referring to the Greeks as Nazis, attempting to destabilize the collective psyche of the European leadership.”
“By inviting further exploration of a quotation’s origin, we might re-discover great and complicated thinkers, who, it turns out, have far more to offer than a single phrase.”
“As I have no skills to help with the virus, I would like to at least try to help in this small way instead. In any case, take precautions, stay calm, do not listen to dangerous idiots, keep yourself and your family safe, and good luck.”
“Looking at the highest income Americans by ethnicity, we likewise find a hodgepodge of people of many colors, with peoples largely from East and South Asia, Europe, and the Middle East at the top.”
“Just as some married couples renew their vows, we, as a publication, will take a moment to do the same and explain why we’re still doing what we’re doing.”
“Those known as ‘the rabble,’ whom Zarathustra describes as fit only to be slaves, ultimately dwell within every human soul. It is that lowly thing in each of us which must be pitilessly overcome.”
“However, now—after seeing how he has been treated by Democrats since he was elected—he will have my vote in 2020.”
“…because heedless empathy for the worst among us is currently leading us on the downward-sloping path to mediocrity and beyond.”
As is tradition at Merion West, here are the editor’s choices for our favorite Merion West interviews of 2019.
As is tradition at Merion West, here are the editor’s choices for our favorite Merion West articles of 2019.
“At present, each identity sees the other as its enemy and justifies its own excesses with the excesses of the other, but living in a diverse multi-ethnic democracy means tolerating a certain degree of difference.”
“In this spirit I would like to thank all the many individuals who have written or commented on my writing the last year, especially those who have offered sincere and interesting criticisms that have helped me develop my understanding of the world.”
“How could a movement predicated on free expression and identity-blind principles come to be associated with the Right and described as reactionary by smart progressive critics like Vox’s Ezra Klein?”
“Running a profitable enterprise is not the same thing as Smaug guarding a pile of gold.”
“Hawley talks again and again about the importance of community and criticizes those on both sides of the political aisle who pay fealty to an individualism that puts the self-creating individual at the summit of what constitutes the good.“
“But when addressing a problem of justice, popularity is neither the sole nor the primary factor for adjudication.”
“…nor could [Houellebecq] have emerged from the hundreds of wallet-siphoning creative writing MFA programs, whose grasp on the American literary world has sanitized literature to an unreadable degree.”
“In a media environment where heady intellectuals spray the air with heady jargon, it is a joy just to have people who keep the spirit of human aspiration alive through art and creative representation.”
“Although the line seems quite clear as to when right-wing ideas have gone too far, the same clarity just isn’t there for when left-wing ideas go bad.”
“Unfortunately, in so blithely dismissing individualism, DiAngelo hinges her theory so heavily on collective, rather than individual, identity and experience that it dies on the sword of a logical fallacy.”
“As Jim Geraghty writes, rather than importing our values, China is exporting its repression into our societies on the back of mass industrial theft and espionage.”
“The resistance displayed towards these important thinkers is most regrettable, and for all the Complacent Men quick to criticize them, doing so makes you no closer to achieving your ever so desired—and elusive—’happiness.’”
“If you have to take your kids and you have to go into a parking lot of a library in order to do homework, that is not something that they want to have to deal with.”
“[Some of my students] couldn’t do all three: commute, work, and schoolwork. So, I saw the affordability problem growing and growing in that setting, but I hear it also from my constituents in every higher education setting.”
“And things like rural broadband, having quality health care, just a good quality of life, good ability to get a great education—whether it’s going into a technical field college or university setting. We had a lot of different options for folks, and we’re slowly moving the needle.”
“The typical socialist often had very little concrete experience with the actual conditions facing those they purported to care about. They were often middle class, well educated, and highly resentful of the rich.”
“Tolstoy was not naïve in thinking that social and political reform would end all forms of evil in human life. Like Dostoevsky, he was very well aware that much wickedness flowed from the pride and vanity of men like Napoleon or the Russian tsars.”
“We need to go back to what the Founding Fathers and Mothers had in mind: a citizen-legislator—somebody that comes here, tries to get results, and then goes home and lets the next person try.”
“People do not truly want an end to suffering in all cases…They need challenges in order to feel the thrill of victory, guilt over their actions to have a chance at redemption, and the possibility of rejection and hatred to feel any deep form of love.”
“Pulling from history, economic data, and even psychology, Dr. Cowen explains why the anti-business sentiment is mistaken, how it originated, and what we should do about it.”
“I have no differences when people produce outcomes.”
