Philosophy

Philosophy articles feature reflection and analysis about public life, values, ethics, and morals.

All philosophy articles at Brownstone Institute are translated into multiple languages.

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Memories of the Before Times

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Oddly, living now in the purple-to-red rural America that my former “people,” the blue-state elites, are conditioned to view with suspicion and distrust, I also have more personal freedom than I did as a member of the most privileged class. The most privileged class does not have the greatest privilege of all, that of personal liberty: it is a class that is continually anxious and status-insecure, its members often scanning the room for a more important conversation, its collective mind continually exerting subtle control, both socially and professionally, over other members of the “tribe.”

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Government by the People: Is It Possible?

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You can bet that this real transfer of power to the people will be strongly resisted by most elite individuals and institutions. They will loudly proclaim every single reason they can think of for why it is a crazy, impossible idea, and get “experts” from their networks to loudly profess the silliness of even proposing the notion. This vitriolic denigration is exactly the measure of how badly we need to loosen their grip on power and change the system they have entrenched for their own benefit.

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No Holy Communion for the Sick, They Said

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When a person is dying or in danger of death, this is the moment when their religion is most dear to them. It is not within the hospital’s jurisdiction to decide when you can or can’t confess your sins, receive Holy Communion and prepare to meet your maker. This abhorrent practice of refusing entrance to clergy must stop now.

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The Appropriation and Corruption of Testimonialism

The Appropriation and Corruption of Testimonialism 

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We must begin to stubbornly hold our places when both the powerful old, and the insouciant young, spring the “agree-with-my-sound-bite-version-of-the-truth-or-be- banished” gambit on us. Yes, they will amp up the volume to try and get us to cower and fold. We need to be stubborn and conflictive with them in ways that many of us never wanted, or believed we could be. 

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Klaus Schwab is the Sorcerer’s Apprentice

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Schwab’s main allies are in the managerial class, indeed, they are at the pinnacle of that class being the CEOs of massive corporations. But an organization–a business–is fundamentally different than an economic and social system, and the methods that work for an organization don’t work for a complex system in which formal organizations are just a part. This is why, for instance, avatars of high modernist management and engineering, like Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter, failed miserably as presidents.

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Religious Individuals Versus Collectivist Control 

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One significant gift of Judaism and Christianity is the concept that an individual is responsible and valuable apart from the group. As Larry Siedentop explains in his book Inventing the Individual, Western civilization’s moral and legal foundations owe a great deal to that legacy. Before that, the ancient Romans and Greeks considered loyalty to the family-clan to be an absolute religious duty. 

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The Chief Cause of Problems Is Bad Solutions

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When almost the whole world loses sight of the common goal of human society, and the elimination of a single problem, in the end a rather unimportant one, takes precedence over everything else, thus becoming the goal – a distorted and absurd one, a disastrous and ruinous one for sure – this is an indication of a fundamental loss of common sense. 

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The Return of Carl Schmitt and His Scheme for Regime Longevity

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Let us remember that Carl Schmitt despised America and everything it stood for, especially the idea of individual liberty and limits on government. It’s one thing to study his writings in graduate school as a warning to what it means to turn against enlightenment values. It’s another thing entirely to deploy his theories as a viable path to keeping power when it appears unstable, not only in Beijing but also Washington, DC. That should truly terrify all of us. 

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To Those Who Misunderstand Giorgio Agamben 

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Giorgio Agamben had, for a few decades before 2020, been known as one of the most judicious thinkers in the world. Since the genesis of what has been called a pandemic, his public image has undergone a radical change. In lieu of praise, he has courted the savage hatred of very many people. Even derogatory labels like “crackpot,” “lunatic,” “coronavirus denier,” and “crazy anti-vaxxer” have been accorded to him.

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