Philosophy articles feature reflection and analysis about public life, values, ethics, and morals.
All philosophy articles at Brownstone Institute are translated into multiple languages.
As the coach, I was tasked with helping my players navigate the intense emotions winning or losing a game can provoke. I was reminded that only a few short years ago, all of these experiences were removed from everyday life. It was a profound experience to reflect on how meaningful it is for our children to go through experiences like these.
Sports After a Stolen Childhood Read More »
In the last century, and then again in this century, the gift of the nutcracker broke. It is shattered beyond recognition today in many countries of the world, including what we used to call the free world. In the remainder of this century, it is up to us to put that beautiful toy back together again.
Why We Love the Nutcracker Read More »
What are the chances that a natural addition of the PB2 gene segment to the H5N1 bird flu virus would occur? Pretty slight, if not impossible, one would guess. The mere fact that such research (which also includes the laboratory construction of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in Wuhan) has occurred, and is probably still taking place, is an unmistakable manifestation of the kind of irrationality that Kafka, Schopenhauer, and Freud unmasked on the part of the not-so-sapiens human race.
The Blind Brute Blunders Forth Read More »
Pharmaceutical companies occupy airwaves. Fat people dance in a town square in an ad for pills to lower blood sugar. Another ad proclaims that a cartoon guy will deliver a colon test to your doorstep in a box. Drug ads for eczema, Crohn’s disease, and all kinds of ailments fill the screen. Rich people in glittering rooms with tinsel and gold and greenery slowly eat Lindor chocolates. Pfizer advertises vaccines for pregnant women. On another network, a show called The Great Christmas Light Fight appears.
The End of the World at Fort Bragg Read More »
Systematic review and meta-analysis should not just be a reflection of power — who can fund the most RCTs, who can perform the most statistical wizardry. They should be about gathering the most high quality information from wherever we can find it to create the most comprehensive picture of any problem and any proposed remedy.
Scientific Meta-Analysis is Broken Read More »
The rational and calculating human mind’s ability to deliver something approaching personal contentment to you has been massively oversold during your lifetime. While these modes of cognition can accomplish many wonderful things, they also have a known ability, when the human mind is left exclusively in their care, to create suffocating closed circuits of thought that can lead to a sense of listlessness and despair.
Lives Unleavened by the Gift of Wonder Read More »
“Truth” has become more or less a “preference”. Sort of like you may like chocolate; I may like vanilla. You like a Chevy while I like a Ford. When we ask which is the “better” car, we can both truthfully say what we think. Has the meaning of “truth” just evaporated? Or is something more at work?
Why are Lies so Believable? Read More »
We know that the modern West has developed a jaw-dropping degree of totalitarianism, wherein the bureaucracies of the state and the corporate sector coordinate together to cripple humans outside their power networks and media channels. But what are the mechanics of this coordination? To understand one of the games they play, consider the rise of measures and standards associated with DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance).
ESG, DEI, and the Rise of Fake Reporting Read More »
We need legislators, and the public, to reclaim public health ethics and to return to credible concepts of health and well-being – as the WHO once did – “physical, mental and social.” This is what was intended when previous generations fought to overthrow dictators, striving for equality and for the rights of individuals over those who would control them. History tells us that public health professions tend to follow self-interest, taking the side of those who would be dictators. If our democracies, freedom, and health are to survive, we must accept reality and address this as a basic issue of individual freedom and good governance for which we are all responsible. There is too much at stake to leave this to self-interested corporatists and the notorious enforcers they control.
We Must Save Ourselves from the Public Health Professionals Read More »
In the holiday season, we are reminded of the importance of community, of our connection with one another. We join together with our family and friends. We extend help and understanding to those we perceive in need. We seek out acts of grace and hope.
Independent Voices Sing in Symphony Read More »
If you live in a Chinese city, or even in London, you are probably so used to surveillance cameras all around you – on lamp posts, the corners of buildings, and so on – that you would hardly bat an eyelid. Yet what contemporary city-denizens take for granted was not always the case, and most people would be surprised to know that surveillance has a long history, and was linked to modes of punishment from early on.
Living Everywhere in a Carceral Surveillance State Read More »
Throughout, my unimpaired eyes and ears told me that the Covid response was an extreme overreaction that was causing widespread harm. Instead of following a gullibly unhinged crowd, I found new friends who knew bad Scamdemic music when they heard it. Instead of “staying safe,” buying the hysteria and flailing their arms, my new tribe stayed sane and moved, vitally and on-time, to their own, unmistakable beat of reality.
The Grateful Dead Succumbed to Coronamania, but We Didn’t Conform Read More »
