How Individualism and Social Constructivism Can Be Reconciled: Part 1
In a recent exchange of letters on the platform Letter (more on which here), Matthew McManus and I explored the topic of inequality, with a focus on leftist critique. The…
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Dostoevsky’s Campaign Against Rationalism and Progress
Fyodor Dostoevsky was defeated by history. A man who viciously attacked and satirized the ideologies of rationalism and communism and defended traditional religious and family structures, Dostoevsky died just decades…
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Unlearning Race: A Letter Exchange with Thomas Chatterton Williams
“[On Gethen] one is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience.”—Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness “I am aware—and from time…
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A WEIRD Problem for Human Nature
Various aboriginal communities lived in the rainforest of north-eastern Australia, surrounded by waterfalls, short rivers and swamps. They lived off hunting, fishing and gathering. Some tribes inhabited the coastal areas…
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People and the Cosmos: Constructor Theory
It seems that, as soon as our ancestors could afford to, they added a spiritual dimension to their existence. Human burial practices are at least 100,000 years old, and religious…
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The Dissolution of the Rule of Law
The UK and the US both seem to be losing the spirit of constitutionalism, the sense of a game-within-a-game. This is not a phenomenon limited to the political classes. It…
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Trump Isn’t Selfish—That’s the Problem
Following the latest allegations of Trump’s corruption and calls to impeach him, more journalists have speculated about what really motivates the president. Many posit that Trump is selfish. An essay…
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Want to Fix Public Schools? Fix the Public First.
Prelude: Public Schools are the Public’s Schools Americans have complained about public schools for as long as America has had them. Depending on who you talk to, they’re either too…
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What Happens When Meaning Goes Away: A Review of Yuval Noah Harari’s “Homo Deus”
Humanity has made tremendous strides in reining in plague, famine and war in recent decades. Take just one example: poverty. Since 1990, on average, with each passing day, there are…
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Are Student Evaluations of Teaching Biased Against Professors?
Part of the ritual of college life is that, at the end of every semester, students dutifully fill out evaluations of their courses, rating their professors’ teaching ability and their…
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The Cooperative Nature of Capitalism
Capitalism is often lambasted nowadays. Turn on the television, open a newspaper or magazine, attend a lecture or just hang out over a cup of coffee or beer, and, at…
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The Disdain of the Clerks
Human beings are too dumb for democracy. That’s the thesis of a paper delivered by political psychologist Shawn Rosenberg at the Annual Conference of Political Psychology last July, approvingly covered…
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How the Engaged Left Can Argue With The Right
Several months ago, Galen Watts and I published two articles on what we called the engaged left. In these pieces, we provided a brief genealogy of progressive thinking and activism,…
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Dave Chappelle and Comedy
While accepting the prestigious Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the legendary Dave Chappelle recently made a firm defence of freedom of speech and the right to offend against what…
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National Values and the Denaturalisation of Shamima Begum
On 9 February 1933, Irishman James Gralton was denaturalised and deported from what was then the Irish Free State. He had spent some years in the US, but he was…
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Culture, Politics and Shia LaBeouf
In the upcoming biopic Honey Boy, about the life of child actor turned cultural phenomenon Shia LaBeouf, the line between reality and performance is blurred, as LaBeouf plays the role…
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Towards a Radical Hope: A Review of “Unfollow” by Megan Phelps-Roper
Reading Megan Phelps-Roper’s account of living in and leaving the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, I kept thinking about Kurt Wise. Wise is a young-earth creationist, but he’s no fool. He…
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How to Write a Letter
“Appearances are against me. Don’t believe them. I have written you in intention fifty letters.” —Charles Dickens, letter to Lady Blessington, 1844 There are no hard and fast rules for…
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