A Formula for Power

Commentary by , October 5, 2018

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. The Weird Neo-Puritanism of the Anti-Kavanaugh Crusade The contemporary left, with its nannyish campus sex rules and “rape culture” panic, has been inching itself toward a kind of neo-puritan ethic regarding sex. But during the controversy over Brett Kavanaugh, this new puritanism has been oddly widening to […]

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The Vindication of Reason

Feature Article by , September 29, 2018

Nathanael Blake invites me to “discuss our differences over a bottle of whiskey and a large stack of books.” I’ll say yes to the whiskey, though I’ll have a few additions of my own to make to his list of books. This is his introduction to a case that the Enlightenment ideal of rationality is […]

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The Kavanaugh Hearings Are About Reason Versus Emotion

Feature Article by , September 28, 2018

There is only one fundamental dividing line in the reaction to the televised hearings about accusations against Brett Kavanaugh, and it’s not solely a partisan one. It’s the line between those who judged the hearing based on emotions and those who judged it based on reason. The testimony of Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey-Ford, added nothing […]

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Lord Acton Versus Pope Francis

Feature Article by , September 27, 2018

The most perceptive and simultaneously most obtuse comment on the current crisis in the Catholic Church is a headline by Marc Theissen: “Suddenly I Understand How [the] Reformation Happened.” This is perceptive, because the mass defection of the Protestants 500 years ago is the right historical precedent for the gravity of the Catholic Church’s crisis, […]

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The New Counterculture

Commentary by , September 24, 2018

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. The New Counterculture Partisanship makes people into idiots. The Brett Kavanaugh media circus is providing us with plenty of examples, and I’ll cite just one on each side. On the left, I give you Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono, who was asked, “Doesn’t Kavanaugh have the same presumption […]

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Generic White Male

Feature Article by , September 21, 2018

The Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings have unexpectedly turned into the usual hopeless DC media circus—but with an ominous undercurrent to it. First, let’s look at the broad outlines of where we are at the moment, though by the time you read this there will undoubtedly some crazy new twist. Up to last weekend, the […]

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World News Roundup

Commentary by , September 17, 2018

American politics is more of a circus than usual these days, and aside from distracting us from the really important domestic issues–the growing economy, but also this administration’s total failure to rein in government spending and debt–it also distracts us from what is going on in the rest of the world. So I decided it […]

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Hurricane Florence Proves that Weather Is Climate

Feature Article by , September 14, 2018

During the approach of Hurricane Florence, the left has been going all Pat Robertson on us, claiming that the storm is a higher power’s vengeance on America for our wickedness. No, it’s not God who is sending this storm to smite us for our sinful debauchery. It’s global warming that has come to punish us […]

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New Kantian Man

Feature Article by , September 11, 2018

Under the “Family” heading, The Atlantic recently carried a cheerful little piece titled, “How Well-Intentioned White Families Can Perpetuate Racism.” How is it that we are doing this horrible thing? The problem, it seems, is that we love our kids and want them to do well in life. Which is just the worst, right? From […]

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Making the “Miracle”

Feature Article by , September 8, 2018

Several recent books on the Enlightenment have sought to celebrate its legacy but have been strangely cursory in their examination of actual Enlightenment thinkers, their ideas, and their influence, sometimes treating the embrace of reason, individual rights, and political freedom as a “miracle” that seemingly came out of nowhere. If you’re interested in the question […]

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