Leftists have long been apoplectic about Koch money on campus, especially when used to support discussions of free-market principles. Now they are strange bedfellows with the Trump right-wing, which also attacks free markets, especially on immigration and trade. Here’s Donald Trump dissing Charles and David Koch: “‘I never sought their support because I don’t need […]
Anti-liberals — Left and Right — versus the Kochs Read More »
[Re-posted from TRI.] 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. The orator was Milo Yiannopoulos, a leading spokesman for the alt-right movement, a revitalized and muscularized version of nationalist
Political protest in a “post-fact era” Read More »
I think what the postmodernists did was truly evil. They are responsible for the intellectual fad that made it respectable to be cynical about truth and facts. You’d have people going around saying: “Well, you’re part of that crowd who still believe in facts.” Source.
Daniel Dennett on the postmodernists Read More »
I’ll be speaking tomorrow in Chicago at the FMRS event, along with Matt Kibbe (President and Chief Community Organizer, Free the People) and Barbara Kolm (President, Friedrich A. v. Hayek Institute). The event is sponsored by the Austrian Economics Center, and its theme is this: The 2017 FMRS brings together leading business people, outstanding scholars,
Free Market Road Show in Chicago — tomorrow Read More »
The Financial Times has good coverage of the increasing rift between American conservatism and free-market capitalism. President Donald Trump is both a result of that rift and a furtherance of it. Many of the deep thinkers behind conservative politicians have long favored the rift. Russell Kirk, Irving Kristol, Robert Bork — who represent differing versions
The further divorce of conservatism and free markets Read More »
Alt-Right philosopher Jason Reza Jorjani is taken on by hard-left philosophers at Jacobin magazine. My commentary article begins this way: Is a seismic change rumbling through Left-wing circles? In the hard-Left Jacobin magazine, two young philosophers bemoan their discovery that postmodern strategies have now been captured by the hateful and hated Alt-Right — and so in
Alt-Right versus Hard Left — Forcing a Return to the Enlightenment? Read More »
What happens to education when it is politicized? Now that we have a new administration, led by Donald Trump, and a new secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, here is an updating of a Public Choice analysis of our mixed government-private education system came to be. The following is based in part by E. G. West’s
Public Choice and our semi-functional education system 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 »
Art critic Eric Gibson pronounces: “Objectivity is a cardinal rule in the discipline of art history. Mr. [Paul] Johnson’s book, by contrast, abounds in strong opinions.” (“Bold Strokes, Strong Opinions,” WSJ) But literary critic Tracy Kidder sneers: “As every graduate student knows, only a fool would try to think or bear witness to events objectively
Competing epistemological imperatives in the arts Read More »
[Below is the text of Richard Wagner’s 1849 essay “Art and Revolution” (and here is a PDF version).] Richard Wagner “Art and Revolution” Almost universal is the outcry raised by artists nowadays against the damage that the Revolution has occasioned them. It is not the battles of the “barricades,” not the sudden mighty shattering of the pillars
Richard Wagner’s “Art and Revolution” text Read More »