History articles feature analysis of historical context in relation to censorship, policy, technology, media, economics, and social life.
All Brownstone Institute articles on the topic of history are translated into multiple languages.
What Sotomayer said about machines and humans was not rooted in ignorance as such; it was the fulfillment of the delusions of countless intellectuals the world over for most of this century. She was summarizing countless papers and presentations in the form of a casual quip, thus revealing it for the fundamental insanity that it truly is.
Why Is the Human Being Not Like a Machine? Read More »
We are, under the pressure of what is arguably the most ambitious and well-coordinated perception management campaign in history, having some of our more basic perceptual and behavioral instincts rapidly bred out of our lives. And worse yet, most people have yet to fathom or even contemplate the actual reasons why this is being done and, what it all portends for the future of human dignity and freedom.
Deep Inside Our Heads and Our Communal Lives Read More »
What a stunning repudiation of state policy – the worst failing of public health and public policy perhaps in the history of the US if not the entire world. We are right now living in its last days. Remember these days, my friends. They are legion and mark what is likely the end of the great fiasco.
They Said They Would Slow the Spread Read More »
For a certain part of the population, perhaps bereft of rituals and practices designed to help them transcend the crude, cruel and ambiguity-generating rhythms of our now largely transactional culture, the surrendering the self to authority can take on an almost religious allure.
The Reality They Invent to Feed the Power They Crave Read More »
The ambition to wipe out the virus in two weeks or permanently “slow the spread” only prolonged the pain. Older people had to be isolated much longer. Younger people who never should have faced lockdowns at all were denied normal lives, including two years of educational losses. The ensuing public health calamity will vex us for decades hence.
Slouching Toward Endemicity Read More »
Will brings to mind Oxford’s Sunetra Gupta (or she brings to mind Will) when he writes that “The interconnectedness of the modern world, thanks in part to the jet engine’s democratization of intercontinental air travel, deters the weaponization of epidemics that the connectedness facilitates.”
American Happiness and the Wisdom of George Will Read More »
This war on dissent is not only a scandal of our times. The lockdowns and now the mandates have fundamentally transformed society and its relationship to government, technology, media, and much more. The emergency continues.
Fauci’s War on Science: The Smoking Gun Read More »
Perfectly healthy people were now considered “fallen” in the health sense, and basically told the only way they could be redeemed, that is, permitted to recover their full constitutional rights, was to follow a course of “rehabilitation” capriciously determined by the authorities and enforced by legal sanction.
The Full Secularization of the Doctrine of Original Sin Read More »
A careful reading of Jacobson shows that it is not just an automatic consideration allowing the government to do what it wants when a pandemic emergency has been officially declared. Covid-19 vaccine mandates do not satisfy any of the required criteria in Jacobson, let alone all of them.
Covid-19 Vaccine Mandates Fail the Jacobson Test Read More »
On November 6, 2020, the Journal of the American Medical Association sponsored an important debate between Stanford’s Jay Bhattacharya and Harvard’s Marc Lisitch over the policy response to the pandemic. They have very different points of view, with Jay favoring “focussed protection” and traditional public health measures, while Marc is on the side of the novel “non-pharmaceutical intervention” side, e.g. lockdowns.
Lockdowns vs. Focused Protection: The Debate Between Lipstich and Bhattacharya Read More »
The war on absinthe – this won’t surprise you – created the opposite of its intended effect. It raised the status of the drink and created a completely unwarranted hysteria in both directions: overconsumption followed by bans followed by speakeasy indulgence. Can you think of anything else, perhaps, that has fit that general model? Marijuana perhaps? Liquor in general? Tobacco? Politically incorrect speech?
The Moral Panic Over Absinthe Lasted 100 Years Read More »
Atlas’s book has exposed a scandal for the ages. It is enormously valuable because it fully blows up what seems to be an emerging fake story involving a supposedly Covid-denying president who did nothing vs. heroic scientists in the White House who urged compulsory mitigating measures consistent with prevailing scientific opinion. Not one word of that is true
A President Betrayed by Bureaucrats: Scott Atlas’s Masterpiece on the Covid Disaster Read More »
