metaxis
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Enlightenment v. Counter-Enlightenment: Hamann’s Particularism
I’ve started Hazony’s most recent book, Conservatism: A Rediscovery, and find it a better book than the one on nationalism. There is much in it I agree with because when push comes to shove, I am a small ‘c’ conservative. The problem for me is that in the condition of Postmodernity, there’s nothing left to
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Taking a Step Back: Here’s an Overview of My Argument
What I’m trying to do here is probably not ideal for blog or Newsletter, but should rather be in a book. I’m not particularly motivated to write a book that nobody is going to read, but it might be useful exercise for me and for the few people who are interested to try to integrate
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Of Foxes and Hedgehogs
A fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing. Archilochus I’ve been arguing for years, but especially since the Cathedral Lectures, that for all our celebration of diversity, we need to find something that unites us, something that all people of good will can agree is of central importance in our being
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Genealogy Part 12A: Vervaeke’s Neoplatonic Wisdom Project
I'm going to break up Part 12 into several components based on the conversations between Bishop Maximus and John Vervaeke that I have linked to here. In addition to watching these conversations between these two, I have watched the second half (25 lectures) of Vervaeke's Awakening to the Meaning Crisis, which has enabled me to
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Progressives v. Jacobins
For so long, San Francisco has been too self-satisfied to address the slow rot in every one of its institutions. But nothing’s given me more hope than the rage and the recalls. “San Franciscans feel ashamed,” Michelle Tandler told me. “I think for the first time people are like, ‘Wait, what is a progressive? …
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J.S. Mill + Alisdair McIntyre = Charles Taylor
The third question is, will Democrats realize that both moral traditions need each other? As usual, politics is a competition between partial truths. The moral freedom ethos, like liberalism generally, is wonderful in many respects, but liberal societies need nonliberal institutions if they are to thrive. America needs institutions built on the “you are not
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Cixin Liu: Democracy and Culture
In a 2018 New Yorker profile of the Chinese science fiction writer Cixin Liu, Jiayang Fan writes– I looked at him, studying his face. He blinked, and continued, “If you were to loosen up the country [China] a bit, the consequences would be terrifying.” I remembered a moment near the end of the trilogy, when