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A conservative take on the world
Here's the most thoughtful conservative appreciation of the President's speech. And here are some points I want to emphasize: 1. The president did not blame the shooting on "inflammatory rhetoric." There's no evidence whatsoever that political rhetoric or tone was the cause of the act of a ...
I thought I'd call attention to one conservative appreciation among many of the President Obama's speech in Tuscon. From Peter Wehner's post on the Commentary magazine blog "Contentions": The president resisted the temptation to offer simplistic explanations for the existence of evil or how ...
So say some of our leading scientists. Of course, not all experts agree. Carl Sagan, the inspiration behind the films ET and Contact, thought that we should spend big bucks combing the cosmos for much more intelligent life somewhere else. He even thought that such life, being benign and ...
The leading Darwinian conservative has done me the honor of responding to my previous post, including the excellent comment by Brendan Foht. According to Larry, the criticism of him for rejecting the idea of eternity of the human species is misguided. The basis of the objection comes from the ...
Country Strong hasn't been taken seriously by film critics. I'm not going to review what they've said or speculate on why they said it. I'm just going to explain why I enjoyed this very thoughtful film. The four major characters---two men and two women--are all extremely attractive. The women ...
There's a lot of talk on BIG THINK about evolutionary explanations of this or that human behavior. They're all pretty fascinating, although far from completely convincing. Darwinian explanations, for what its worth, usually strike me as pretty conservative. In fact, the best Darwinian ...
1. The study of great books is usually contrasted with the use of textbooks and other technical books. It is contrasted, in other words, with study of the studies that show us what we most need to know as productive beings in a free, middle-class society. 2. It’s inevitable on our society that ...
Three books showed up this week with chapters by ME in them. Even without those chapters, each would still be a fabulous (although somewhat diminished) book. So as not to test your patience, I will feature them one at a time. Bradley C. S. Watson edited The Idea of the American University. ...
The good news is, of course, is that the old are living longer and healthier than ever. But, as I explained, the news in not all good for us old guys in a techno-world full of preferential options for the young. Here's the first half, for those who aren't up to clicking: The standard of ...
So it turns out there are actually three outstanding holiday movies--TRUE GRIT, THE KING'S SPEECH, and THE FIGHTER. True Grit is, as I've said, very ambitious and philosophically pretentious. It makes broad claims about human nature, and it causes us to wonder whether everything we do is ...
1. The Tea Partiers--and many other conservatives--distinguish between the view of our Founders (good) and that of the Progressives (bad). The Progressives (beginning around the turn of the 20th century) have undermined the intention of our Founders--which was to protect individual freedom by ...
So my "True Grit" post got a lot of response (unfortunately not below) on Facebook and by email and all that--mostly critical. One particularly astute critic--Ken Masugi--accused me of being in the "bad company"of that celebrated postmodernist-wrongly-understood Stanley Fish. According to ...
Let me recommend to you this fine review of this season's best movie. Once again, I think the Coen brothers more than flirt with nihilism. The murderous violence of the film is, deep down, senseless, and the girl's quest for justice defined as vengeance most misguided. Still, two bounty ...
1. So this was the first significantly white Christmas in Georgia during my 31 years here. If I were a libertarian "conservative," I would add: some global warming! But we postmodern conservatives would never say that. We are skeptical both about Al Gore's inconvenient truth and all that and ...
1. Somebody around BIG THINK should say something about Christmas. I know that’s a divider--not a uniter--topic. Not everyone is a Christian. 2. Some Christians--like our founding Puritans--believed Christmas--especially it’s timing--is basically pagan, and they’re not totally wrong. Many ...