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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covid response psychological

If We Only Knew

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Moral endurance is a problem these days. Empathy is low, and not just on the pro-narrative side. I don’t know about you but the feeling I can’t quite ignore or reconcile these days, something I am not proud of as an ethicist or a human being, is a palpable feeling of being numb. Numb to the repetition of history’s atrocities, numb to the laziness of the compliant who helped to create the world in which we now live, numb to inauthentic pleas for amnesty.

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plausibility not science

Plausibility But Not Science Has Dominated Public Discussions of the Covid Pandemic

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Many other instances of plausible scientific claptrap or bad science have occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic. Medical journals routinely and uncritically publish this nonsense as long as conclusions align with government policies. This body of fake knowledge has been promulgated at the highest levels, by the NSC, FDA, CDC, NIH, WHO, Wellcome Trust, AMA, medical specialty boards, state and local public health agencies, multinational pharma companies and other organizations around the world that have violated their responsibilities to the public or have purposely chosen not to understand the fake science. 

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mass formation psychosis totalitarianism

New Thinking on Mass Formation Psychosis

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While the inner world of the Truth Speaker might be our last refuge, even if we feel we have nothing else and are completely overpowered by fanatical totalitarians who deny us all other space and companionship, we need to think and act much bigger. We are not that small or downtrodden, nor as isolated. We can win, and we will.

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deification of mathematical modeling

The Deification of Mathematical Modeling

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These weren’t prophets warning us about the future. They were profiteering charlatans who knew what they were paid to predict. Their training taught them that this was utter statistical malpractice but not one of them objected as to how their work was being used. It was produced to be propaganda and they were happy to please their benefactors.

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lockdowns abundance

Did Lockdowns Signify the “End of Abundance?”

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Locking down the population and subjecting it to draconian restrictions is, for some reason, absolutely central to their vision of changing “what it means to be human.” Bill Gates and other influential elites have pointed to the Covid-19 response as their template for addressing future challenges, and have even floated the possibility of future climate lockdowns (no, sadly this is not a conspiracy theory).

Did Lockdowns Signify the “End of Abundance?” Read Journal Article

Who Ultimately Wins in a Society of Flash Mob Moralists? 

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While it may make a lot of people feel good about themselves at the moment, it will only further corrode trust in the rule of law— a shift that always favors the powerful—and take valuable energy away from the urgent task of fighting massive and systematic government and corporate assaults on our dignity and freedom.

Who Ultimately Wins in a Society of Flash Mob Moralists?  Read Journal Article

Only Experts Can Fill Ice Cube Trays 

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Those simple instructions are comforting, now that our lives also come with their own set of instructions. Those superiors who somehow missed their destinies in writing instructions for plastic ice cube trays now work in public health. Pay no attention to the accumulated knowledge from prior generations. For goodness sake don’t read for yourselves, despite virtually everything being available online. And at all costs remember that children do not deserve special attention. 

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The Long Road Ahead

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The reality is that people do still vote for their captors. They really do not want to admit the damage they have been party to, even if that damage is to their own children, their own businesses, and their own communities. The big takeaway is that what Charles MacKay said in 1841 really does hold: “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.” Recovering senses takes years, not months. 

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They Want Us to Hate Each Other

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Human beings are tribal by nature. We instinctively divide the world into an “us” and a “them”. It’s a mental shortcut. It relieves us of any responsibility to engage in deeper discernment. It protects us from risk. If we just stick with our own people, — or so the argument goes, — then we will be safe.

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The School of Friendship

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What passes today for ideological convictions, in our supposedly terminally divided country, are nothing of the sort, but rather labels to which many quickly and lightly affix themselves precisely because they haven’t really thought deeply about what they believe and why, but don’t want to be seen as being out of step, or of not having really done their homework. 

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