Society

Society articles feature analysis about social policy, ethics, entertainment, and philosophy.

All society articles at Brownstone Institute are translated automatically into multiple languages.

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inquiry

Better to Have No Commission Than This One

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Next time there is a pandemic, people will be able to say ‘Baroness Hallett’s report stated that the UK government didn’t lock down fast – or hard – enough. We won’t make that mistake again!’ There will be no redemption, just a long, hard sentence, swiftly imposed. Once again, lives will be ruined, not saved.

Better to Have No Commission Than This One Read Journal Article

free speech

What I Can Say and What I Cannot Say

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Regarding our society’s “debate” on what speech should be “permitted” and what speech should be banned … and what speakers should be sanctioned and punished, “permission” is the word that explains everything. From 2020-2023, some speech is still permitted by our government and its many sycophant cronies, but, alas, libraries worth of speech are now no longer permitted.

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censorship

The Censorship Hegemon Must Be Stopped

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This agency was created in the waning days of the Obama administration, supposedly to protect our digital infrastructure against cyberattacks from computer viruses and nefarious foreign actors. But less than one year into their existence, CISA decided that their remit also should include protecting our “cognitive infrastructure” from various threats.

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death of the left

The Death of the Authentic Left

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The left political project now is just kitsch, a toxic mimic of its former self, deployed by the ruling class to enslave the world. The question is, why are so few people on the left able to see this? Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, and Michael Moore, to name a few, should have been able to spot the Covid psyop in about 5 minutes. Instead they became rabid cheerleaders for fascism. 

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silencing experts

The Silencing of the Experts

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As Kant explained in 1784, the silencing of the experts drives the loop of immaturity, preventing enlightenment. We must therefore ask ourselves, what if this spell was broken? How much closer would we be to an enlightened society? How safely would we be removed from entangling ourselves in those invisible chains, preventing us from living a full life, as truly autonomous and enlightened individuals? 

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Treason of the Experts

The Destruction of Language as Tool of Power 

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It’s currently very fashionable in certain circles to talk about emotional resilience. What no one seems to talk about is cognitive or intellectual resilience, and how under the pressure of the semantic literalists it is being torn to pieces before our eyes. Language is a wonderful and amazingly complex tool that, if properly honed, allows for the perception and expression of nuanced understandings of the world, and from there, the imaginative creation of new hopes and possibilities. 

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threats to liberty

Twenty Grim Realities Unearthed by Lockdowns 

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If you haven’t changed your thinking over the last three years, you are a prophet, indifferent, or asleep. Much has been revealed and much has changed. To meet these challenges, we must do so with our eyes wide open. The greatest threats to human liberty today are not the ones of the past and they elude easy ideological categorization. Further, we have to admit that in many ways the plain human desire to live a fulfilling life in freedom has been subverted. If we want our freedoms back, we need to have a full understanding of the frightening challenges before us. 

Twenty Grim Realities Unearthed by Lockdowns  Read Journal Article

boundaries

The High Cost of Shattering Sensible Boundaries 

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Boundary-setting, and with it the transmission of trans-generational knowledge and the ability to calculate one’s true emotional proximity to others, are essential elements of a healthy culture. For reasons having a lot to do with the Baby Boomer generation’s tendency to often flippantly dispense with time-tested cultural knowledge in the name of “progress” and or “liberation,” many children have been deprived of an opportunity to gain these valuable skills. 

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woke religion

What and Why is ‘Woke?’ 

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Woke’s lust for destruction has emerged from the heart of a decaying Western society. Woke is an attack on the most potent and healthy elements of that society, backed by the super-rich who seek more control. At once a sterile new religion of the useless to celebrate uselessness, a fanatical doomsday cult, and a thief of what is good, healthy and self-affirming, woke represents in four letters what ails the West, and the antithesis of what is needed to heal the West.

What and Why is ‘Woke?’  Read Journal Article

walker bragman

Kids Need the Opportunity to Take Risks, Learn from Mistakes, and Succeed on Their Own

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Is your kid a little weird? So what! Guess what, you’re probably weird too. We’re all a little weird. I definitely am. If your kid is quiet, has trouble making friends, hates sports, loves math, only eats 5 foods, is just a little different — no need to rush to diagnose, therapize and medicate. Are those things sometimes necessary? Sure. But the rush to label any minute difference or quirk, then medicate it into oblivion does not respect a child’s individuality.

Kids Need the Opportunity to Take Risks, Learn from Mistakes, and Succeed on Their Own Read Journal Article

fear of a microbial planet

Fall of the Experts

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The pandemic opened the curtain to expose the folly of expert worship. Experts are just as fallible and prone to biases, toxic groupthink and political influence as anyone else. This recognition might make people uneasy. However, it should also force a sense of responsibility to search for the truth despite what the experts might say, and that’s a good thing.

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