O’Neill is one of the courageous ones. Apt summary and recommendation: “So it starts with tearing down statues of slave traders and it ends with a school in Sussex ditching its plan to name one of its houses after JK Rowling because she has dared to criticise the cult of transgenderism. What a deranged week […]
Brendan O’Neill shakes his head over this week Read More »
I was happy to be invited to participate in this panel organized by the Foundation for Economic Education. My remarks focused on how Covid-19 has made philosophers of us — as we were confronted with the immediacy of life and death, the importance of work and leisure, how much control we have control over our
Fear of Technology? FEE panel on Covid-19 and Technology Read More »
From dancer Maya Plisetskaya’s memoir, I, Maya Plisetskaya. She was a great ballerina, primarily with the Bolshoi in Moscow, her life filled with drama and extremes, both positive and negative — the negative mostly a function of operating as an artist under Soviet socialism, with all of its petty bureaucrats, power-lusters, obstructionists, and other semi-humans.
Plisetskaya on survivors and unlikely writers [Humor] Read More »
TAS CEO Jennifer Grossman will interview me on Racism/Black Lives Matter/Collectivism and Covid-19/Quarantine/Responsibility issues. Sign up via here.
On racism and quarantines — TAS livestream today Read More »
Nietzsche vs. Rand Join me in this 3-session course “Nietzsche vs. Rand on Altruism and Egoism,” co-organized by thinkspot and Ayn Rand Center Latin America. * Session 1: June, Saturday 20th, 12-1 pm Central. On Altruism: Both Nietzsche and Rand are vehement opponents of altruism. Why? And in what ways are their critiques similar and different
Nietzsche vs. Rand on Altruism and Egoism — livestream series Read More »
Foucault’s grandchildren. The Enlightenment created a magnificent civilization, yet three generations of postmodernism have bred a sub-culture of deniers—of facts, objectivity, truth, justice, and progress—and who combine that with vicious rhetoric and physical violence. Such activists’ enemy is reality, so they want and need to shut down anyone who persistently raises facts. Psychologically, such activists
Foucault’s grandchildren Read More »
We’re now posting serially at thinkspot the transcripts of my Open College podcasts. Here’s the first: OC1: Free Speech: Why the Philosophy Matters: “To say that Free Speech *Is* Free Thought *Is* Free Action is a rhetorical overstatement, but its purpose is to emphasize the integration of thought, speech, and action. …” Audio versions of
Free Speech: Why the *Philosophy* Matters [OC transcription] Read More »
Use the adversity test: “In everyday life, if people intend to reach a true assessment of someone, to decide whether he is bad or good, they do not base the investigation on those periods of his life when he was untroubled by external circumstances; they look at how he behaved when he was afflicted by
How to judge politicians: Polybius Read More »