In my latest National Post column I ask what the point is of trying to build a Conservative Frankenstein’s Monster with blue brain, red heart and green hair, brought to life by a jolt from a polling machine, when conservatism is the reality-based philosophy that believes in coherent rules.
In Convivium I say the movie 1917 could have gone wrong in so many ways. Instead it surprised me by going very right in many ways, from avoiding cheap clichés about the Great War to a positive depiction of masculinity. Go see it if you haven’t.
“These sentences are difficult for the modern reader, who is accustomed to think that the term ‘human nature’ does not correspond to any demonstrable empirical data. But for Spinoza, as for Aristotle, this was not so; nor is it for some contemporary neurophysiologists, biologists, and psychologists.”
Erich Fromm To Have and To Be
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the push to approve the use of Huawei equipment in our 5G network is a classic case of selling them the rope with which they intend to hang us.
“Strangely bad reasoning: ‘God hasn’t stopped human beings from committing evil. Therefore I withdraw my faith from God and place it in human beings instead.’”
J. Budziszewski "Underground Thomist" email Feb. 25, 2019.
“To say that something is ‘natural’ means not that it is inevitable, but that the potential for it exists in the genotype. This in turn implies that it is merely prudent to bear in mind the potential of that ‘natural’ behavior and act accordingly. [Robert] Wright approvingly cites Francis Bacon, who announced, ‘Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.’”
Lionel Tiger reviewing Wright's Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny in National Review March 6, 2000
In my latest National Post column I say the possibly entry of John Baird into the Tory leadership race as a self-proclaimed “true blue” candidate who’s also modern raises the question of what exactly he thinks he believes… if anything. OK. Never mind exactly. Can we at least get a vague notion?
“The common belief of the age [the 18th century] that human nature was forever the same referred essentially to the raw biological nature upon which the environment operated.”
Gordon S. Wood The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787.