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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churches during lockdowns

Churches During Lockdowns: Near Disaster 

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The compassion-hacking of American churches did not in itself save anyone’s life, but it did help to break down another civil-society barrier standing in the way of governmental totalization. As Hannah Arendt warned us, authoritarian and totalitarian schemes do not work without mass buy-in from the constituency. Buy-in requires people to be isolated, lonely, atomized, and stripped of all meaning.

Churches During Lockdowns: Near Disaster  Read Journal Article

speed bumps

The Deeper Truth about Speed Bumps 

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These are classic “controlling practices” designed to gradually leach from each and every one of us—and most infuriatingly those not yet fully socialized—what is arguably our greatest instinctual drive: the desire to weave stories of our own in the company of others that remind us not of what they tell us we are and must be for them, but of the sense of dignity that we all want to feel and, to the best of our abilities, extend to others.

The Deeper Truth about Speed Bumps  Read Journal Article

The Pandemic Response Unleashed Two Kinds of Nationalism

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For nearly three years, most people in the world have been treated like lab rats in an experiment in bio-technocratic central management by state power, at the urging of once-respected global institutions, and this has resulted in economic crisis, demographic upheaval, and utter political panic. It will be many years before this is sorted out. 

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Lancet COVID-19 Commission

A Critique of The Lancet COVID-19 Commission 

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The commission members appear convinced that lockdowns and mass vaccination were a net benefit, but It also appears that in two years of consultation they have not considered the alternative. The loss of decades of progress on infectious disease, human rights, and poverty reduction caused by lockdowns has not given sufficient pause for thought. 

A Critique of The Lancet COVID-19 Commission  Read Journal Article

The New Parasitic Leviathan

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The consolidation of a non-democratic form of governance that relies on external sources of authority should be a matter of concern to all. A state that functions via emergency rule based on authority that does not derive from citizens is a dangerous one. It is a hollow state that can only function with external justifications and is no longer a democratic state.

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Are We Falling as Rome Did?

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If our civilization collapses, it won’t be because of an outside attack, like Bedouin charging in from the desert. It will be because of those among us who, like parasites, destroy us from within. Our civilization may collapse and it could be due to any number of factors—war, the economy, natural disasters—but the silent killer, the one that may get us in the end, is our own moral catastrophe.

Are We Falling as Rome Did? Read Journal Article

market-loves-you

The Market Still Loves You

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The theme is meaning. Not big meaning but meaning in small things. The meaning of everyday life. Finding friendship, mission, passion, and love in the course of working out one’s life in the framework of a commercial society, which should not be narrowly construed as only a way of paying bills but rather should be seen as the instantiation of a life well lived. We were not doing a good job of that, so my thinking was to inspire people to come to love what we take for granted.

The Market Still Loves You Read Journal Article

Why did the Left Fail the Covid Test So Badly?

By / / , , / 12 minute read / Articles
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I am truly grateful for all that John Pilger and his companions in the leftist propaganda dissection cadres have taught me over the years. But as Ortega y Gasset said, a public intellectual is only as good as his ability to remain at the “height of his times.” Sadly, this group of otherwise talented individuals has failed this test, badly, over the last two-plus years.

Why did the Left Fail the Covid Test So Badly? Read Journal Article

Golden Calf

Mitigation Is the Golden Calf

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It was evident to me from the early days of the lockdown that something very cult-like was occurring. When quite literally nothing happened during those first 15 days to justify the lockdowns, the mantra of “just wait two weeks” was on the lips of the believers of the Branch Covidians, much like how a doomsday cult leader is allowed to pick new dates when the aliens don’t show when they are supposed to. 

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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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