Progress involves improving on the past. Once, we used leeches to suck out an excess of cancer-causing humors, or just blamed them on the wrath of the gods. In modern hospitals, we now image such tumors deep within the body, …
Levers of Control: Accept or Flee?
The extreme levels of control that were in evidence across the world during the ‘pandemic’ did not usher in anything new, in principle, but merely its exacerbation. To be sure, there were all kinds of justifications for such an intensification …
Mountains to Climb, Civilization to Save
For reasons I can’t explain, I said ‘Yes’ when asked to join my daughter for a weekend cycling in the Victorian High Country. My wife and I would do a little gentle ride on Saturday, nothing too severe, then on …
The Cartelization of Beauty
Who at one time or another in their lives has not wondered about the suitability of their looks, and their adequacy as currency in the popularity and mating games? I would have to guess pretty much everyone, especially between the …
Authority Isn’t What It Used to Be
When one frames the current developments in the world – which may be framed in several ways – according to the question, whether the gradual waning of authority in the course of time, particularly since the end of the Second …
The Hostile Takeover of the Air Force Academy
The transformation of the Air Force Academy (AFA) from a military institution to a progressive, liberal arts school has been incremental, relentless, and calculated. The goal to politicize the training and perspectives of cadets, who constitute about 20% of annual Air …
The Complexity Science of Medicine Requires Freedom
In 1971 I was a first-year medical student, and I was struggling. We were studying Gross Anatomy and I just couldn’t seem to understand anything. At the time, a “regional approach” to anatomy was all the rage. We started dissecting …
We are all prisoners in Plato’s Cave
Some meditations on the human condition blaze with truth even after millennia. And perhaps none more so than Plato’s Cave. Plato assumes what was self-evident to both the simple and the wise from the beginning of civilisation until just yesterday: …
They Inch Towards Total Technological Control
It would seem as if Martin Heidegger’s warning against the ‘essence of technology’ – Gestell, or Enframing – a way of thinking that frames everything we think of, do, and aspire to, in terms of parameters of optimal use or …
2024 and The Pursuit of Happiness
2024 is shaping up to be a nightmare. And it affords us the best opportunity yet to pursue our happiness. Let me explain…
Here, let me explain. . .
Source: The Corbett Report Read the original article here: https://corbettreport.com …
Ulrich Beck and Our ‘Risk Society’
One wonders what Ulrich Beck – the theorist of ‘risk society’ – would say, if he were alive today, given the kinds of ‘risk’ one currently faces on all sides. Yet, with hindsight one can discern adumbrations of the outrageous …
How to Repair Our Post Repentance Culture
A few days back, in a column published in this same space, Jeffrey Tucker wondered out loud if we will ever witness a public reckoning of the numerous crimes committed against the citizenry and our constitution in the name of …
Science-Totalitarianism Now Threatens Liberalism
Crucial amongst classical liberalism’s advantages is that it conforms to the principles of what Mark Pennington has called ‘robustness’ (Pennington 2010, p. 2). A policy, policy-making process, or policy-making institution is ‘robust’ when it takes account of two human imperfections: …
Did Liberalism Fail the Test of Covid?
I am completely obsessed with the question of whether liberalism failed in response to Covid. As I’ve written before, I think it is perhaps the most important question in the world right now. If liberalism failed then we are now …
Will We Ever Get the Truth?
Donald Trump will certainly get the Republican nomination. With that the issue of truth and honesty about what happened on March 13, 2020, and beyond will likely not be pushed by the executive branch even if Trump wins.
No one …