Philosophy articles feature reflection and analysis about public life, values, ethics, and morals.
All philosophy articles at Brownstone Institute are translated into multiple languages.
The covid pandemonium was a reminder that even rich, sensible, well-mannered, and well-educated societies can descend into the pits of hell faster than you can cry “emergency.” Society always balances on the edge of an unspeakably horrific abyss.
Mattias Desmet on the Totalitarianism of Mass Panic Read More »
Social engineering appears doable only to those persons who, seeing only a relatively few surface phenomena, are blind to the astonishing complexity that is ever-churning beneath the surface to create those surface phenomena. To such persons, social reality appears as it does to a child: simple and easily manipulated to achieve whatever are the desires that motivate the manipulators.
The Children We Call Our Leaders Read More »
These Milgramite “experimenters” and “teachers” knew exactly what they were doing. Indeed, many of them, like our President, clearly relished initiating and firing up a “stick-it-to-your-family-and-friend” movement among us.
The Milgram Experiment Restaged, with Millions of Real Victims Read More »
For the Robespierres of lockdownism, the object of pity became those “vulnerable” to Covid, and set against this “more touching calamity” the needs of other classes – chiefly children and the poor – were held to count for little. Indeed, the members of those classes could be visited with all manner of cruelties given the bigger goal the lockdown proponents hoped to achieve.
Compassion Unhinged: The Robespierres of Lockdownism Read More »
The trauma is greatly diminished when we stop, breathe and, to the best of our ability, fearlessly catalog the injuries we have suffered, ask who authored them, and, if relevant, what made so many of us acquiescent to these assaults upon our dignity and well-being.
A Helpless People, Weary and Traumatized Read More »
What we really need is a system that is safe for freedom and human rights that protects those ideals even when the madness of crowds – or the arrogance of intellectuals or the lust for power of the bureaucrats – wants to scrap them. And that means revisiting the very foundations of what kind of world in which we want to live. What we once believed was a settled matter has been completely upended. Figuring out how to recover and restore is the great challenge of our times.
How the Pandemic Response Changed My Thinking Read More »
Human freedom is the public practice of not being trolled by the ruling class, which is forever telling us that life will be better once the most intelligent and most powerful among them are granted all trust to do with our lives and property as they see fit. When we decide that it ends, it ends.
The Loss of Trust Is Well Earned Read More »
Perpetual decline and fall is not inevitable. It is fixable but every powerful force out there, especially mainstream media, seems to stand against that. It is all designed to demoralize us and cause us to give up. We cannot accept this fate. There is still time, providing that we understand what is happening and the grave consequences of letting it all take place without a fight.
Lockdowns, Closures, and the Loss of Moral Clarity Read More »
Even the most inalienable of rights will shatter like thin glass if a righteous majority feels morally justified in stampeding over them to reach for some utopia beckoning on the horizon. Even the clearest of principles will be rationalized away if an indebted majority becomes dependent on a morally bankrupt system.
Can We Find Our Way Back to Freedom? Read More »
We preach non-discrimination, equality, and democracy, but when confronted with what seemed to be a potentially mortal threat to our health and lives, we reverted back to pre-modern forms, almost overnight creating a new caste system, shoving the lessers among us in front of the virus to keep the elites pure and clean.
The Political Hierarchy of Infection Read More »
Looking back, there is nothing terribly surprising about any of this. It’s a consequence of safety culture, arrogant elites, and a belief that powerful, rich, and intelligent people can manage the world better than the rest of us. We’ve been here many times in history, and it has always foreshadowed a long period of suffering.
Why Won’t They Admit Failure? Read More »
To establish their utopias, enemies of liberalism will never hesitate to squelch free expression. We liberals, therefore, must forever be ready, understanding the power of words, to challenge with our own words these assaults on freedom of expression and on open, peaceful discourse and debate.
The Dangers of Compelled Belief Read More »
