The Renaissance of Our Hearts
Little acts of kindness mean more than we thought and losing them means more than we might have realized. It also means we are in desperate need of a kindness renaissance.
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Society
Society articles feature analysis about social policy, ethics, entertainment, and philosophy.
All society articles at Brownstone Institute are translated automatically into multiple languages.
Dear Colleagues: We Must Revive Sound Science
We write this letter to you as a group of academicians, doctors, and professionals on the issue of a recent and extended beating taken by science and rationality, and the resultant current and ongoing concerns.
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XX-XY Athletics: Because Real Fairness Matters
We are not anti-trans. We are pro-woman. And we believe everyone deserves the chance to play fairly. The vast majority of Americans agree. But most are too afraid to speak up and be smeared as a bigot. I hope this brand – designed for and by women – can inspire the silent majority to stand up for women and girls. Our fans will know that when they join us, they’ll get the very best athletic clothing and they will not stand alone.
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Four Years Later
Has the dust settled? Far from it. It is everywhere. We are choking on it. The storm cloud comes in many forms: inflation, learning losses, ill-health, high crime, non-functioning government services, broken supply chains, shoddy work, displaced workers, substance abuse, mass loneliness, discredited authority, a growing real estate crisis, censored technology, and overweening state power.
The Meltdown of Commercial Real Estate
In case you’ve still got money in a bank, Bloomberg is warning that defaults in commercial real estate loans could “topple” hundreds of US banks.
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The WHO Pandemic Agreement: A Guide
The commentary below concentrates on selected draft provisions of the latest publicly available version of the draft agreement that seem to be unclear or potentially problematic. Much of the remaining text is essentially pointless as it reiterates vague intentions to be found in other documents or activities which countries normally undertake in the course of running health services, and have no place in a focused legally-binding international agreement.
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The Crucifixion of Kulvinder Kaur
If the current trend of ruining the careers of honest, courageous physicians and scientists is not stopped, such choices will become, for want of a better word, academic. The outstanding, outspoken, and independent physicians will be run out of the profession. The remaining rank-and-file, already more submissive than their persecuted betters, will quietly comply with orders from above, knowing what will happen to them if they don’t. The newly minted doctors, freshly indoctrinated in today’s Pharma-driven curricula, and pre-selected for compliance via mandatory vaccinations and other human resource department litmus tests, will goose-step through their practice directives and clinical protocols, no questions asked.
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Don’t Slow the Spread of Joy
We spent years needlessly frowning behind masks and protocols. We didn’t smile. I frowned at my unreasonable cello playing. I didn’t smile, but I should have. I learned my lesson after that first recital. Now — I smile no matter how badly I play. It is the most important thing an aspiring cellist can do after a performance. Smiles will always be an infection we should Start to Spread.
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The Taboo Ingredient for Progress: Shame
What no one told us, however, is that this reformist method of engendering peaceful change was highly dependent on the existence of a broadly-subscribed ethos of honesty, goodwill and, perhaps most of all, healthy shame in the class of people possessing an outsized ability to promote new ways of approaching social problems.
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The Social Pole Switch
I struggle to find words to describe how weird the last four years have been. I’m now starting to think that Covid represents a social pole switch worldwide. Perhaps it has happened before, perhaps it is the first social pole switch in history.
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How Will We Remember the Pandemic Era?
Jump ahead a couple decades from the present and it seems almost certain that there will be no shortage of people reluctant to accept that organizations like the CDC behaved in a disreputable and dishonest manner. Moreover, it does not seem difficult to imagine mothers reprimanding sons for vowing disobedience in future pandemics, while older relatives shake their heads in disbelief at how young contrarians somehow don’t understand the reason we locked down and masked up was to do our part and help flatten the curve.
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In the Shadow of Oedipus
I want to take the thesis of the last essay a step further and explore what might be causing our collapse. Is it a coincidence that we are suffering in so many different areas of life right now? Is it a little misstep on an otherwise progressive path? If we are on the verge of collapse, is it part of the arc of all great civilizations? Or, like Oedipus, do we suffer from some tragic flaw — a collective destructive character trait that we all share — that is responsible for bringing us to this place at this moment in history?
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