The end of liberal universalism
Ross Douthat nails it in his most recent column, Diversity and Dishonesty: It would be a far, far better thing if Harvard and Brandeis and Mozilla would simply say, explicitly, that they are as ideologically progressive as Notre Dame is Catholic or B. Y.U. is Mormon or Chick-fil-A is evangelical, and that they intend to […]
Historical contingencies of civilizational ideologies
Reading An Introduction to Confucianism, which is not the typical historically linear treatment (i.e., Confucius → Han dynasty State Confucianism → Song dynasty Neo-Confucianism, etc.), and is also more comprehensive than most introductions (it’s over 350 pages). In case, the author notes that before the Han dynasty Confucianism was simply one of many contesting schools. […]
Christopher Beckwith against modernism
A few months ago I reviewed Empire’s of the Silk. I focused on the historical scholarship, but Lorenzo Warby puts the spotlight on the more normatively charge jeremiad against “modernism” interlaced throughout the book.
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Social cycles
An addendum to my comments on the posts on natalism. As I suggest below I think as a whole it is appropriate to model humans before 1800 as a conventional animal subject to Malthusian constraints. When a new crop (e.g., Champa rice, the potato) was introduced there would be a population increase, but that increase […]
You need to know history to talk about history
The New York Times Magazine has a long piece, How Christian Were the Founders?, which outlines the efforts of school board members of fundamentalist inclinations to shift the narrative about the founding of the American republic. In short, these activists would like children to understand that the United States was founded as a Christian nation […]
Rand Paul
A moderately sympathetic story about Rand Paul, who is running as the anti-establishment candidate in Kentucky. My bias, such that I have, is to look positively upon Paul’s run for Senate, mostly because I know that when I agree with a Paul they’ll actually stick to the stance they’re taking because they actually believe […]
…about those cheese-eating surrender monkeys
France denies citizenship over veil:
French officials have denied citizenship to a man because he allegedly forces his wife to wear a full Islamic veil, the immigration minister said Wednesday.
“This individual imposes the full veil upon his wife, does not allow her the freedom to go and come as she pleases, and bans her from going […]
Strange use of the word “conservative”
Iranians celebrate ancient Persian fire fest:
Thousands of Iranians gathered at dusk against a snowy mountain backdrop to light giant bonfires in an ancient mid-winter festival dating back to Iran’s pre-Islamic past that is drawing new interest from Muslims.
Saturday’s celebration was the first in which the dwindling remnants of Iran’s once plentiful Zoroastrian religious minority […]
The rise of the irreligious Left, the reemergence of Republican religious neutrality (?)
Over at ScienceBlogs I have a post up where I explore the differences by state between the American Religious Identification Survey in 1990 and 2008. I then compare these data to the national election results in 1988 and 2008.
Here is a chart which shows the relationship between % “No Religion” and proportion of votes for […]
Hitler reacts to Scott Brown’s victory
H/T Ezra Klein
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Open thread on Scott Brown, etc.
In case people want to discuss his victory tonight. I don’t have any unique insights that you can’t find elsewhere, but a quick question. Looking at the pollster.com Coakley vs. Brown polls on the front page right now I get average of 51 for Brown and 44 for Coakley. The final looks like to be […]
Haiti & charity
A reader asked about donating to alleviate the suffering in Haiti. In particular, making sure that the donations don’t go toward religious or Leftist ends. My own personal assumption is in line with the recommendations of the The GiveWell Blog:
A few notes:
Unfortunately, “disaster relief” is not an area we’ve researched. When we’ve (very briefly) looked […]
The Confucian conservatives
I highly recommend John Keay’s China: A History to any readers who wish to familiarize themselves with this civilization. Keay’s narrative is aimed at the general reader. Specialists will no doubt find themselves irritating by the simplifications, or even errors (I’m not a China specialist but even I picked out a factual error here and […]
Don’t be an infidel?
Interesting possibility that Google is engaging in self-censorship in regards to Islam. If true the motive is likely more profit that fear (via Abhi).
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On signals & design
Somehow SR’s email address was added to Newsmax’s mailing list for ad buys. The pitch is that one will reach affluent readers. But they undermine their message by formatting their HTML emails in a garish 1997 Frontpage-generated style. I thought they were being ironic, but I think they’re sincere.
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We are a social animal
Occasionally we get emails like this:
Up until now I thought I was the rarest of all ducks. A conservative atheist. I read Heather MacDonald’s piece in the Wall Street Journal today and was pleased to find I am not alone. I would love to know more about the organization.
Yours truly,
[name omitted]
One of the […]
Happy New Year!
And let’s have a great teens.
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On Christmas
A few years ago I stopped saying “Happy Holidays” as my default and switched to “Merry Christmas.” The main issue for me is that I didn’t want to get hung up on a name. As someone who doesn’t accept that Jesus Christ was the Son of God I don’t celebrate the season for that particular […]
The Trouble With Forgetting Your Own History
The Trouble With Standing Athwart History:
But of course this is the trouble with basing your political value system on things like authority and tradition. It’s always changing! William F Buckley’s determination to stand athwart history yelling stop led him to a robust defense of apartheid as a system of government for the American South. At […]