Michel Houellebecq: Populism's Prophet
Populism has been unpacked, dissected, defined, and analysed, and the results have all been discouraging.
G. Gavin Collins
· 16 min read
Books
A collection of 226 posts
William Peter Blatty's Counter-Countercultural Parable
In her new book Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics (excerpted in Quillette on August 27), essayist and cultural critic Mary Eberstadt documents just how damaging the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and its normalization of divorce in particular, has been to America’s children. She mentions
Kevin Mims
· 13 min read
Against Literalism—'The Satanic Verses' Fatwa at 30
The intermingling of elements—culture, language, religion—is celebrated, while the concept of purity in identity and culture is repudiated as too constricting.
Daniel James Sharp
· 9 min read
Fully Automated Luxury Communism—A Review
Like almost every other communist before him, Bastani wants to reach communism via socialism. Thus, the fact that socialism has already been tried more than two dozen times, and failed every time without exception, should be somewhat relevant to this book.
Kristian Niemietz
· 11 min read
How Antifa's Apologists Fell in Love With Street Violence
Antifa movements have sprung up in a variety of countries, often opposing Nazis and Nazi sympathizers while also promoting general far-left politics of the Marxist and communist variety.
Robby Soave
· 7 min read
Four Flavors of Doom: A Taxonomy of Contemporary Pessimism
Pessimism is not just factually wrong, it is also harmful because it undermines our confidence in our ability to bring about further progress.
Maarten Boudry
· 10 min read
What Defenders and Critics Get Wrong about the 'Marketplace of Ideas'
The motif of the marketplace of ideas, Stanley argues, only works with descriptive speech.
Mohamed Ali
· 6 min read
The End of an Era—A Feminist Firebrand Looks Back
As global violence against women gained horrendous momentum, many Western feminists became increasingly afraid to criticize that violence lest they be condemned as colonialists and racists.
Phyllis Chesler
· 14 min read
How a Feminist Prophet Became an Apostate—An Interview with Dr Phyllis Chesler
Dr Phyllis Chesler has never been afraid to be unpopular.
Louise Perry
· 11 min read
Pop Fiction's Rich History of #MeToo Drama
Lately, the very serious people who write about TV and film and books for publications such as the New Yorker and the New York Times have been tripping over themselves to heap praise on highbrow novelists, filmmakers, and screenwriters who have used their platforms to tackle issues such as rape
Kevin Mims
· 12 min read
Conformity: The Power of Social Influences—A Review
We are natural conformers because, more often than not, it keeps us alive and in good standing with our peers.
Vincent Harinam, Rob Henderson
· 9 min read
'The Guarded Gate' Review: Elites and Their Eugenics Projects
The sordid and shameful history of eugenics in the U.S. should be better known, as should the role of another prominent American institution that was central to the development of eugenics ideology.
Jack B. Nimble
· 13 min read
On Its 70th Anniversary, Nineteen Eighty-Four Still Feels Important and Inspiring
Nineteen-Eighty Four, whose first publication took place 70 years ago today, is itself a sort of anti-novel, one that undermines its own dramatic tension in a way that might now be described as postmodern.
Jonathan Kay
· 15 min read
Goodbye, Herman Wouk
On May 17th, American novelist Herman Wouk died, just ten days before he was due to turn 104. If Ernest Hemingway’s life and career had been as long as those of Herman Wouk, he’d have been alive as recently as 2003 and he’d have published a book
Kevin Mims
· 8 min read
The Case for Nabokov
An even moderately careful reading of Lolita should make it quite clear that it’s anything but a “celebration” of child rape.
Cathy Young
· 13 min read