Many of the early appointments represent the coming together of MAGA, MAHA, and DOGE, the fulfillment of decades of cultivation of disparate groups of dissidents who had not previously realized their common interests and common enemies.
The Revolution of 2024 Continue Reading
The last two years have revealed to us what we would rather not have discovered, namely that freedom and rights, along with enlightened ideals and good science, are extraordinarily fragile. They are only guaranteed by a public that believes in them and is willing to stand up for them. When the cultural consensus in favor of liberty decays, terrible beasts are unleashed on the world.
A New Age of Barbarism Continue Reading
The Godly path to Adam Smith’s liberal plan is a path away from cultishness. Can liberalism be sustained in a world of waning belief in God? Tocqueville said that the spirit of liberty and the spirit of religion depend on one another. Hayek ended The Fatal Conceit asking whether people in an age of waning theism will not be inclined to find meaning and validation in cultish politics.
Adam Smith’s Liberal Path Continue Reading
While there are clear specificities between the suffering of Africans under the system of chattel slavery and the deprivation of civil liberties endured by most citizens around the world during the current pandemic panic, Anastácia reminds us of certain transhistorical constants in the process of dehumanization and subjugation of populations through the gagging and muzzling of their bodies to quell their protestations.
The Mask of Your Enslavement: The Image, History, and Meaning of Escrava Anastácia Continue Reading
Across our vast, heterogenous human populations of the US, a policy or a public health message that works where you live may very well harm people who live somewhere else, who have different cultures, beliefs and values. As one size may never fit all, it becomes increasingly important for scientists helping a pluralistic world to avoid political monism at all costs, to deliberately create space for alternative ideas.
By taking these steps—paying attention, thinking critically, resisting division, seeking common ground, and promoting media literacy—we can hope to create a more united and resilient society. The path forward lies in recognizing our shared humanity and common interests.
The Mechanics of Social Disintegration in the Modern Age Continue Reading
I want to take the thesis of the last essay a step further and explore what might be causing our collapse. Is it a coincidence that we are suffering in so many different areas of life right now? Is it a little misstep on an otherwise progressive path? If we are on the verge of collapse, is it part of the arc of all great civilizations? Or, like Oedipus, do we suffer from some tragic flaw — a collective destructive character trait that we all share — that is responsible for bringing us to this place at this moment in history?
In the Shadow of Oedipus Continue Reading
The balance between national sovereignty and freedom is delicate. To permanently detach governing structures from citizen control, even if only through a periodic plebiscite, courts disaster even on topics like trade, to say nothing of infectious disease and virus research.
The Trouble with Compulsory Globalism Continue Reading
How can we celebrate any so-called “victory” if people like Roger, and so many others, remain trapped in this legal nightmare? Closure will come when he can walk free and every politically motivated case against liberty-minded crypto innovators is dropped.
The Unfinished War on Crypto Continue Reading
To reject the ideological schemes of “reality” imposed from above to instead embrace the most true and fundamental impulses of life is precisely what those wonderful pilots, nurses, teachers, policemen, lawyers parents and many others are doing right now before the tyranny of mask and vaccine mandates.
Vaclav Havel and the Semiotics of Public Masking Continue Reading
