A warlord king went off with his men to attack a neighboring kingdom. While he was away his city was vulnerable — and another warlord saw his chance. When the unprotected city’s inhabitants saw the approaching army, they made hasty defenses, fought vigorously, and were able successfully to beat off the attackers. When their king […]
Punished for teaching one’s kids Read More »
At TRI, my commentary on the University of Washington shooting, Milo Yiannopoulos, postmodernism, and the alt right begins this way: “A protester was shot at the University of Washington during a clash between rival factions — one faction physically blocking an audience from hearing a speech, the other faction seeking to hear a rabble-rousing orator.
Political protest in a “post-fact era” [Commentary at TRI] Read More »
[When a nation’s debt becomes unmanageable, what is the responsible next step?] The Greek mess is complicated, but in sorting through complex messes it’s useful to start with simpler cases and build up. All sides in the discussion are appealing to moral considerations about responsibility, fairness, and prudence. Part of the debate is over what
On Greek Debts and the Moral Thing to Do [Good Life series] Read More »
First in a series tracking Donald Trump’s presidency and its anti-free-market policies. 1. Pence and Trump explicitly criticize free markets. The New York Times. 2. Direct dealing with an individual company: Carrier will not move. The Fiscal Times. 3. Close up parts of the Internet. “We’re losing a lot of people because of the Internet,”
Trump versus Free Markets, late 2016 edition Read More »
My anti-Trump street cred is here. But acting like an immature asshole (to use technical philosophical terminology) is no way to fight back against the man or his policies. Minimal civility is essential for a politics to function peacefully. Some disturbing anecdotes: * Senator Joseph McCarthy was demonized for going after artists and others who
Civility down the toilet: intolerance, anti-Trump style Read More »
The Tale of the Slave By Robert Nozick Robert Nozick was Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. Consider the following sequence of cases, which we shall call the Tale of the Slave, and imagine it is about you. 1. There is a slave completely at the mercy of his brutal master’s whims. He often is
Nozick’s Tale of the Slave [excerpt] Read More »
At the non-partisan PRRI site, results released today about the frequency with which people unfriend over politics. (Scroll down past the surveys about Christmas language.) Striking contrasts by gender and party affiliation: Question: Do the results show a general tendency, or is this December 2016 result narrowly reflective of the previous month’s election in which
Unfriending over politics — survey results Read More »
In 1689 John Locke noted, wryly: the Church … is for the most part more apt to be influenced by the Court than the Court by the Church. How the Church was under the vicissitude of orthodox and Arian emperors is very well known. Or if those things be too remote, our modern English history
When Christians change their ethics to suit the political winds Read More »