Beliefs have consequences

I read Kevin Williamson because he is a really good writer. I only agree with him about forty percent of the time but, because he is such a good writer, he sometimes manages to pin down something really important in just a few words and, by doing so, really clarifies the issues. A good example is this comment. Michael and other likeminded anti-liberals take a relatively optimistic view of the state and what it might reasonably be expected to accomplish, and a relatively pessimistic view of the people and what they might get up to left to their own devices. I take the opposite view: I believe that the modern democratic state is inclined to be slightly more savage and backward than the demos that constitutes it. Williamson doesn't mention Catholics specifically, just anti-liberals but the Michael he is talking about is Michael Brendan Dougherty who is both Catholic and anti-liberal. Williamson is also Catholics. Is he a liberal though? I wonder sometimes whether there isn'...

What does it mean when economists start to praise moral (moralistic?) critiques of society from establishment conservatives? Here is Tyler Cowen on Ross Douthat's new book: Excellent book!  It has a real dose of Peter Thiel (and some Tyler Cowen), and most of it comes as fresh material even if you have read all of Ross’s other columns and books.  Imagine the idea of technological stagnation tied together with a conservative Catholic critique of decadence, and in a convincing manner with a dose of pro-natalism tossed in for good measure.  I think, as my title for this post indicates, that you can see evidence of a realignment here. People who didn't used to be political bedmates are becoming political bedmates. I think the real motion here, just to be clear, is on Douthat's part. We see people who used to be establishment conservatives—Douthat, Kristol, Goldberg, Dreher, Ponnuru, French—embracing technocrats. As with so many other things, we're turning back to the 196...

It hit me the other day that one of the key tenets of postmodernism has never actually been tried. I mean the supposed distrust of grand narratives. That one was around only a few seconds before it was replaced with the notion that we could replace grand narratives we didn't like with new ones that we did. That isn't surprising. It's just what Casanova said to Voltaire. But could you do it. Could you (you here meaning me too) live narrative free?

Updike doesn't interest me. I could never read him. (I feel the same way about Norman Mailer and, well, pretty much every American writer of that generation.) It sometimes interests me that others can. Patricia Lockwood has written a piece on John Updike. I found it via Marginal Revolution where the link is labelled "Anti-Updike". The review itself is kind of vague. You get a sense that Lockwood has problems with Updike but can't quite find words to adequately describe it but keeps trying. (I'm guessing, perhaps incorrectly, that Lockwood has managed to thwart the rules and write her own Wikipedia entry . Then again, perhaps a devoted fan who has completely internalized Lockwood's style wrote it. In any case. it has the same lyrical feeling—long on feeling, short of facts or logic—that the review has. Part of me admires her for pulling this trick off.) In any case, the sense I get is that women of Lockwood's generation have mixed feelings about Upd...

This is from the Meditations as quoted by John Sellars in his book, The Art of Living , These three thoughts keep always ready to hand: First, in what you do that you act not without purpose otherwise that Right itself would have done [...] The second, to remember the nature of each individual from his conception to his first breath until he gives back the breath of life [...] The third, to realize that if you could be suddenly caught up into the air and could look down upon human life and all its variety you would disdain it [...] Sellars goes on to say that these three connect to the three divisions of Stoic philosophy. "The first is concerned with actions and impulses and corresponds to 'ethics'." The second, meanwhile, "is concerned with the true nature of individuals and corresponds to 'physics'." Finally, "the third is concerned with the analysis of impressions and value judgments and thus corresponds to 'logic'." At ...