Brownstone Institute Articles ⋆ Brownstone Institute

The High Cost of Shattering Sensible Boundaries

Thomas Harrington June 3, 2023 Law, Philosophy, Society 16 minute read

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Boundary-setting, and with it the transmission of trans-generational knowledge and the ability to calculate one’s true emotional proximity to others, are essential elements of a healthy culture. For reasons having a lot to do with the Baby Boomer generation’s tendency to often flippantly dispense with time-tested cultural knowledge in the name of “progress” and or “liberation,” many children have been deprived of an opportunity to gain these valuable skills.

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3/16: The Day That Will Live in Infamy

El Gato Malo June 3, 2023 History, Law 8 minute read

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While perhaps the US is a Constitutional republic in form and theory, in terms of function it has devolved into something far less suited to human flourishing. America has elevated, enabled, and become largely captured by a bureaucratic security apparatus whose raison d’être was purported to be fighting wartime threats. But the war machine does not exist to produce victory.

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What and Why is ‘Woke?’

Paul Frijters,

Gigi Foster,

Michael Baker June 2, 2023 Philosophy, Society, Vaccines 9 minute read

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Woke’s lust for destruction has emerged from the heart of a decaying Western society. Woke is an attack on the most potent and healthy elements of that society, backed by the super-rich who seek more control. At once a sterile new religion of the useless to celebrate uselessness, a fanatical doomsday cult, and a thief of what is good, healthy and self-affirming, woke represents in four letters what ails the West, and the antithesis of what is needed to heal the West.

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New CDC Director Is Another Lockdowner

Jeffrey A. Tucker June 2, 2023 Policy 4 minute read

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We are all hoping for a clean repudiation of these policies, and even a flip of the narrative such that participating in this disaster would be a mark against people in terms of career development. We are nowhere near that point yet. It’s the opposite. The regime is still hiring and promoting out of the lockdown party for the future. They cannot admit error and are working to make sure they never have to do so.

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An Ideology and Agenda of Estrangement

Christopher S. Grenda June 2, 2023 Philosophy 12 minute read

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Marxism for children involves mental unwellness. It fractures the deepest sense of love, loyalty, and trust children experience – with parents. The experience of this fracture is a process of mental unhealth. That’s the logic of Marxist praxis these days.

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The Fraying of the Liberal International Order

Ramesh Thakur June 2, 2023 Government, Policy 9 minute read

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To no one’s surprise, the rising and revisionist powers wish to redesign the international governance institutions to inject their own interests, governing philosophies, and preferences. They also wish to relocate the control mechanisms from the major Western capitals to some of their own capitals. China’s role in the Iran–Saudi rapprochement might be a harbinger of things to come.

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A Myth-Making Toolkit from the Volcano’s Shadow

Haley Kynefin June 2, 2023 History, Philosophy 21 minute read

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Collective consciousness, especially when it spans multiple centuries, carries immense power; but many of us have lost our communal ties and our sense of history. We may have forgotten who our ancestors were and where they came from; we may know little about what they ate, what they believed in, and the rituals they practiced.

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The Deplatforming of the “Disinformation Dozen”: More Coverage From Tracy Beanz

Aaron Kheriaty June 1, 2023 Media, Technology 5 minute read

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Facebook responded to the White House’s incessant and abusive demands for more censorship with, “We hear your call for us to do more, and as I said on the call we are committed to working towards our shared goal.” This after a triple punch of threats were lobbed by the White House and the Office of the Surgeon General (OSG), Dr. Vivek Murthy, at social media companies in mid July 2021.

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Complying, Not Defying: Twitter and the EU Censorship Code

Robert Kogon June 1, 2023 Law, Media, Technology 4 minute read

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The withdrawal of Twitter’s signature from the Code is a highly theatrical, but essentially empty gesture, which will undoubtedly serve to shore up Musk’s free speech bad-boy bona fides, but has virtually no practical consequences.

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Ireland’s Assault on Free Speech

David Thunder June 1, 2023 Law 7 minute read

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A law infected with this level of vagueness will easily become a conduit for the subjective opinions and ideologies of the interpreter. This means that public officials, whether police, prosecutors, or judges, will be able to use their power, if they so wish, as an instrument of political and ideological domination, dressed up under hopelessly vague language. For example, a judge who believes that biological sex is passé might interpret hard-hitting criticism of the trans agenda as “incitement to hatred” rather than reasonable democratic debate.

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The Economics of Lockdown Panics

Robert Blumen June 1, 2023 Economics 10 minute read

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Economics alone cannot tell us if any cost is too much to “save one life.” But economic thinking can help us understand that preserving human life entails bearing costs. It requires resources and people with skills. We must provide ourselves with the means to bear those costs if we wish to continue to have the ability to preserve human life in the future.

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Misinformation Is a Word We Use to Shut You Up

Daniel Klein May 31, 2023 Media, Philosophy 32 minute read

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The “anti-misinformation” projects are obvious miscarriages of civility, decency, and the rule of law. We must rediscover the norms of openness, tolerance, and free speech that dignify humankind. Science depends on confidence, and confidence depends on those liberal norms. Those norms are the parents of good science, healthy sense-making, and civil tranquility.

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