Praiseworthy Institutions
In which Nicholas Gruen and I discuss institutions that support human flourishing by limiting competition, rather than nudging people forward through self-interest.
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The Dimensions of Free Speech
The right's test for healthy speech — that it should somehow be "free" and unrestrained — is a weak diagnostic compared to the ideas of isegoria (equal speech) and parhēsia.
Alt-Politics in the Political Center
No one would be satisfied with a politics that was somehow halfway between the extremes of right and left, that wasn’t one thing or another. The center needs a positive definition. It needs its own direction. It needs to offer its own alternative.
Memory is an Amateur: On the Brokedown Palace
Instead of structured hierarchical trees of logic and thinking, memory uses her own idiosyncratic wayfinding to get from one connection to another. The professional keeps his papers in filing cabinets, but memory hides hers in the woods.
What Does the New Popularity of Stoicism Mean?
Stoicism is a philosophical school — one with a long and complicated history — and which, for some reason has, after becoming increasingly popular over the last few years, attracted an even larger audience during the pandemic. Vice reports a significant increase in sales of stoic-related
How Volodymyr Zelenskyy Sent Courage Viral
How the courage of one person — to do, in a sense, only what he is expected to do — has lead to outsize consequences on the world stage.
Flattery in Politics: Mal Meninga vs King Lear
When I was a boy, my father sometimes told me the story of Cincinnatus, the
5th-6th century farmer who was twice appointed dictator of Rome, and who
voluntarily gave up his power both times. His restraint had supposedly been a
model for early American leaders like George Washington, who gave