My answers to the question: No, No, and Yes. 10-minute talk at the Forum da Liberdade in Brazil, April 2022. My co-discussants were The Spectator‘s Melissa Chen and political science professor João Pereira Coutinho. Excerpts from my remarks start at the 6-minute mark in this video: Related: My talk on the roots of the culture
Are the Culture Wars the new Cold War? Read More »
Consider these two contrasting principles of education: Bildung is experiencing and acting in the world freely and in personal way through a process of self-education without formal schooling. Typical schooling: acting in a controlled and impersonal environment in a directed-by-others process. Bildung was developed most in 19th-century Germany, most significantly by Wilhelm von Humboldt. It
Education as *bildung* — time for a rejuvenation Read More »
At Smithsonian Magazine, an eye-opening piece on government-propaganda history. And as government’s acquired powers and bureaucracies tend to persist and grow, the precedent set by Wilson is still with us. Writes professor of journalism Christopher Daly: “The full bundle of techniques pioneered by Wilson during the Great War were updated and used by later presidents
Woodrow Wilson’s 1917 “Ministry of Information” Read More »
“Ayn Rand”The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2001 I wrote the article on novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand for The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. My entry focuses on her ethical philosophy. The articles are periodically reviewed by encyclopedia’s editors and authors, and here is the latest.
“Ayn Rand” — revised Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article Read More »
Nietzsche has a reputation for being an individualist. But note this from his Twilight of the Idols: “For the individual, the ‘single man,’ as people and philosophers have hitherto understood him, is an error; he does not constitute a separate entity, an atom, a ‘link in the chain,’ something merely inherited from the past—he constitutes
Was Nietzsche individualist? Individual-as-error version Read More »
Michael Newberry, Commentaries on 29 Great Art Works 1. Geometric Warrior, 8th century BCE 2. Kroisos, 540-515 BCE 3. Aphrodite by Praxiteles 4th century BCE 4. Doryphoros by Polykleitos, c. 450 BCE 5. Hera of Samos, 560 BCE 6. Battle of Alexander, 250 BCE 7. Three Goddesses, c. 438-32 BCE 8. Ulysses in the Land
Newberry comments on 29 Great Art Works Read More »
Angels on a Pin (The Barometer Story) By Alexander Calandra Some time ago, I received a call from a colleague who asked if I would be the referee on the grading of an examination question. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed
Angels on the Head of a Pin, by Alexander Calandra Read More »
The Patriot Philosopher and I took up seven questions: 1.) Can you tell us about your academic background. What compelled you toward this path in life? Did you always want to be or envision yourself as a public intellectual? 2.) In your influential work, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault, you offer a unique