A collection of 89 posts
One of the justifications offered by the cultural-appropriation mob that came after me is that you cannot speak for others unless you are the other.
Fred Willard was a kind of Holy Fool even among fools.
The entire argument was about whether one particular trans ally had become too famous at the expense of more worthy and authentic competitors.
“What’s it about?” is usually the first question we ask when someone recommends a new book, and it’s the wrong question.
A philosophy of optimism was central to the flourishing of the American project. But it’s also useful to consider whether insisting that success and greatness lie around every corner can become a maladaptive response to problems that are complex and brutal.
Love, it turns out, remains an enduring mystery.
They believe in the perfectibility of man in their own image: a combination of unscrupulous optimism and narcissism.
I honestly have no idea why any actor would want to appear in a serious play featuring protagonists who are not, in some way, “screwed up.”
It was my job to turn a regressive sow’s ear into a progressive silk purse.
Scruton did not entertain petty prejudices, and had no wish to tell anyone how to live or who to love.
It is not only religious “zealots” who get obsessed about good and evil. All human beings do.
We are effectively being told that, at this truth-seeking institution, it is inappropriate for us to utter certain indisputably true statements, because the value of truth is trumped by the emotional states of one or another demographic.
The simplest way of defining oikophobia is as the opposite extreme of xenophobia.
In its effort to protect its students from potentially awkward social interactions, the university is arrogating adult decision-making to the institution.
As chilling effects go, “I would speak out, but I don’t want to risk going to jail” is not all that different from “I would speak out, but I don’t want to risk losing my friends and my livelihood.”