On the widespread phenomenon of frustrated and angry young men becoming hateful and destructive: “I was ready to love the whole world, but no one understood me, and I learned to hate” is a line from Mikhail Lermontov’s 1840 novel, A Hero of Our Time. I’ve frequently wondered, given the timing, how much the young […]

Tyson Popplestone interviews Dr. Hicks on how cultural and political ideologies shift over time, with an emphasis on how intellectual movements and academia have influenced society’s values and further downstream, political movements. Dr. Hicks criticises several major movements but expresses a cautious optimism for the near future, emphasizing the potential for cultural renewal through entrepreneurism,

I’ll be speaking on philosophy’s role in the free-speech battles to this MIT organization on Monday, February 3, 2025. It’s an open meeting, so any interested party can listen in. Link to register here. Related: The MIT FSA’s coverage of the Dorian Abbot cancelation. Related: John Stuart Mill on the social requirements of free speech

By Professor Stephen R.C. Hicks, Rockford University, USA. Lecture 2: If education is about basic facts and truths about reality, then what is reality? Is it the natural world—or also a world beyond nature? Is it cause-and-effect—or random or sometimes miraculous? Is it finite in space and time—or infinite spatially and eternal? Previous lectures in