Brownstone Journal

Brownstone Journal features in-depth articles, news, research, and commentary on public health, science, economics, social theory, and related policy issues — offering critical perspectives on institutional failures, government interventions, and threats to liberty.

Explore topics like vaccine trials, post-pandemic public sentiment, cancer screening dilemmas, weight loss drugs, food systems, digital ID, antidepressants, pandemic profit motives, collapse in public trust, and paths to evidence-based reform, personal freedoms, and a healthier society.

All Brownstone Institute articles are translated into multiple languages to reach global readers, foster international dialogue, and support challenges to centralized narratives worldwide.

Brownstone » Brownstone Journal
Liberalism as a Political Adjective

Liberal as a Political Adjective: 1769–1824

By / / , / 2 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

Those who favor reform that reduces the governmentalization of social affairs need a name for that Smithian outlook. Whatever name we adopt, it will be abused or stolen by those whose characters and deeds spell the governmentalization of social affairs. We should remember who we are. We should return to the great liberal arc of the last 500 years, rising out of Christendom. There is only one liberalism 1.0. Let’s recover it and stick with it.

Liberal as a Political Adjective: 1769–1824 Continue Reading

Explaining the Crisis through Jacques Lacan

Explaining the Crisis through Jacques Lacan

By / / , , / 13 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

This account of Lacan’s discourse theory enables one to make sense of the discursive struggles currently occurring in global space. And once one has an intellectual grasp of one’s adversary’s ‘master moves’ in this space, one can better prepare to counter them through the hysteric’s and analyst’s discourses.

Explaining the Crisis through Jacques Lacan Continue Reading

cochrane-review-vaccines

Under the Microscope: Cochrane’s Covid-19 Vaccines Review

By / / , , / 5 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

There has been little attention paid to Cochrane’s review of Covid‐19 vaccines, in stark contrast to the world-wide media attention paid to its review of face masks. Since Cochrane reviews have been lauded as “rigorous” and “trustworthy,” it is prudent to apply equal scrutiny to the latest update of the “Efficacy and safety of COVID‐19 vaccines.”

Under the Microscope: Cochrane’s Covid-19 Vaccines Review Continue Reading

Emotional Contagion and Mass Hysteria

Explaining the Nocebo Effect, Emotional Contagion, and Mass Hysteria

By / / , , / 8 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

Even if the disease itself is not mild, a pandemic wave through a population tends to reduce local stress and anxiety and focuses people on a singular goal. This has been called the “typhoon eye effect,” reported during outbreaks of SARS, people closer to the pandemic were less anxious and more able to accurately estimate their own risks. Conversely, those on the periphery or outside the outbreaks, who received their information from media sources rather than personal experience reported increased anxiety and distress. There’s nothing more effective than having your irrational fears debunked firsthand.

Explaining the Nocebo Effect, Emotional Contagion, and Mass Hysteria Continue Reading

Banishing Ghosts after the Pandemic

Banishing Ghosts after the Pandemic

By / / , , / 4 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

Gratitude and its rewarding expression were sorely lacking during the Pandemic. Masks, medicines, and the disease of politics created wide rifts amongst friends and family. Some of the wounds may never heal, but the holiday where we remember our dead is over. Now we move into the season where we give thanks to those still with us.

Banishing Ghosts after the Pandemic Continue Reading

Vaccine Mandates and Employee Termination

Vaccine Mandates and Employee Termination: Arbitrary and Capricious

By / / , , / 9 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

It is highly likely that rigorous examination of employee health records will reveal multiple examples of vaccinated employees who contracted SARS-CoV-2 infection with or without COVID disease despite being fully compliant with an employers’ mandatory vaccination policy.

Vaccine Mandates and Employee Termination: Arbitrary and Capricious Continue Reading

Chronicles of an unvaccinated leftist

Chronicles of an Unvaccinated Leftist

By / / , , / 14 minute read / Articles
SHARE | PRINT | EMAIL

The prejudice observed against the unvaccinated was far from minimal. It was two and a half times greater than the exclusionary attitudes toward immigrants from the Middle East. Researchers discovered that the unvaccinated were as disliked as individuals struggling with drug addiction and significantly more so than people who had been released from prison.

Chronicles of an Unvaccinated Leftist Continue Reading

Join 30,000+ Independent Readers: Get the FREE Brownstone Journal Newsletter