Society articles feature analysis about social policy, ethics, entertainment, and philosophy.
All society articles at Brownstone Institute are translated automatically into multiple languages.
The $365 million referendum, backed almost unanimously by the governing, educational, financial, media, and sporting institutions and funded generously by them using shareholder and public monies rather than their own, confirmed an alarming gap between the elites and the vast majority. It should but is unlikely to lead to any serious introspection by members of the elite.
The Nays Have It, and That’s Great for Australia Read More »
It is not “Anti-Science” to question the policies recommended by scientists or to investigate the possibility that scientists cause a pandemic. What Hotez calls “Anti-Science” is the core of science itself: an independence of mind, a diversity of perspectives, and an anti-authoritarian proclivity that conflicts with the interests of authoritarians masquerading as scientists. It is this independence and anti-authoritarianism that inspires confidence in science as well as democratic society, not the toxic ramblings of a scientific authoritarian as he’s unseated from power.
What Some Call “Anti-Science” Is Just Anti-authoritarianism Read More »
Brownstone was founded in light of the above history to shine a light on higher ideals, not a Schmittian war between friends and enemies but societies of compassion, dignity, freedom, rights, and the exercise of human volition against all threats and uses of violence public and private. This is our guiding light now and always. Apocalypticism builds nothing; it only destroys. It’s the instantiation of the philosophy of The Joker. No nation and no community can survive it.
The Triumph of the Apocalyptics Read More »
There was a time when the sanctity of human life, at least publicly, meant more in our society. We now live in a world different from that of 4 years ago. Though pre-2020 life was perhaps more murky underneath than many of us thought, three years of incessant official lying, institutionalized vilification, population segregation, and publicly sanctioned hate has taken its toll.
On Death and Human Decency Read More »
This isn’t merely about the legacy of an individual but an urgent call for introspection and reckoning with the values and principles we hold dear as a society and a scientific community. The soul of science is at stake here, and the shadows cast by authoritarian tendencies threaten to engulf the vibrant, robust tradition of scientific debate and discourse, replacing it with a monologue of power and control.
Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Own “Gain-of-Function” Read More »
When we see no repentance but rather a continuation and escalation of the catastrophic policies that got us into this mess, it’s hard to continue to believe it’s just all one big mistake.
How to Cope in the Midst of Crisis Read More »
The effect of this conflation of safety and health, and of the attendant mass submission to technical solutions to identified health threats, is that our well-being is nurtured at the level of cohorts and not of individuals. When any one of us stays safe we increasingly acquiesce in the sacrifice of our individual welfare at the altar of one or other computer-modelled universal benefit, of which we can at best merely partake but which is fundamentally indifferent to our flourishing.
Safe, Smart, Special Read More »
Government censorship reduces our society to just two groups of people: the censors and the censored. While it remains in place, the ranks of the censored will be ever-expanding as the censors require ever more censorship to ensure people continue to disbelieve their lying eyes.
The Costs and Casualties of Government’s Information Total War Read More »
Truth-telling, or in ancient Greek, parrhesia, is something different. It is what one does when you tell or speak the truth exactly as you experience or perceive it, with no punches pulled. You don’t have to call the proverbial spade a shovel (unless this is what it takes to get through to your interlocutor), but you have to speak truthfully without holding back. This is particularly relevant for speaking (or writing) in public, where you run the risk of exposing yourself to harsh criticism.
Truth-speaking and the Technocratic Cabal Read More »
Growing up in a nice suburb and studying at a brand-name university one can really come to believe that life is inherently well-ordered, and that “doing well” within it is mostly about getting in with the right people and following the right rules and processes.
The Social Meaning of Hortatory Yard Signs Read More »
The threat of voluntary lockdowns should lead lockdown sceptics to cast their net beyond the institutions of the State and bring them to confront the harder-to-limn, bottom-up drivers of lockdown like parental socialism. They need to find ways of addressing our collective self-infantilisation and to reemphasize the value and importance of free agency.
Why Did People Comply? Read More »
History provides many cases of a beaten down, demoralized, and increasingly poor and censored majority population being ruled over by an imperious, inhumane, sadistic, privileged, and yet tiny ruling class. We just never believed we would become one of those cases. The truth of this is so grim and glaring, and the likely explanation of what happened so shocking, that the entire subject is regarded as something of a taboo in public life.
The Great Demoralization Read More »
