Enjoying the view from Limbo
Liberty's Labors Lost / What is The Establishment? / World Politics
by Daren Jonescu · Published September 19, 2023
The American government’s old guard establishment in both parties wants Ukraine to lose the war, but slowly. The establishment’s upstart wing, comprised mainly of populists of the right, including the farcically-named House Freedom Caucus, wants Russia to win, and quickly. Neither side is quite willing to state its genuine position directly, at least so far, although the loonier puppets of the populist faction,...
The aggressive effort to reduce “Western” or “European” civilization to its alleged sins — racism, sexism, imperialism, systemic inequality, cultural appropriation, greed, and the rest of the neo-Marxist talking points — serves as a convenient diversion from the truth that these same sins, such as they are, may be found equally, though perhaps with regional variations, in all times and places. By hiding...
What is The Establishment? / World Politics
by Daren Jonescu · Published April 25, 2022 · Last modified April 26, 2022
Today, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken wasted several hours of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s time by playing tag-along following Boris Johnson’s attention-grabbing visit to Kyiv last week. We all know by now that the Biden administration is hellbent on helping Ukraine do just enough to prevent Vladimir Putin from achieving his “aims” in that country, but without going...
The world’s current fidgeting over rising energy prices amid the Russian war of attrition in Ukraine, as though our daily convenience is reason enough to let a rabid tyrant go ahead and blow out the doors of his cage, got me to thinking what a wonderful metaphor this impending “energy crisis” has become for so much of what has gone miserably wrong with...
Progressives believe, or say they believe, that the history of “Western civilization” is systemically racist, sexist, oligarchic, intolerant, and so on, not merely accidentally or on its margins, but as an essential element and raison d’être of its existence. In other words, these people believe — their political movement depends on the belief — that the entire philosophic, religious, scientific, artistic, and political...
Give and take.-– Everything that makes you tired of your fellow human beings can also, if you remember to let it, make you more appreciative than ever of trees, birds, turtles, clouds, and the way an otter’s head pops out of the thick river grass. Start to finish.– The first fully formed appearance of the essence of what is usually called Western civilization occurred...
Ideas and Reflections / What is Progressivism?
by Daren Jonescu · Published August 1, 2021 · Last modified August 2, 2021
Cultural appropriation is a thoroughly Western notion. Therefore, every non-Western intellectual or activist who declares cultural appropriation in defense of his own society’s exclusive rights to its local customs, fashions, or language is actually committing cultural appropriation in so declaring. For, on the premises of the progressive argument, he is employing ideas to which he has no right, grounded in intellectual concepts and...
Well, my calendar says it’s 2018, but anyone taking a quick glance at today’s world scene and its sorry cast of characters could be forgiven for imagining it was 1918. After all, we humans pride ourselves on learning from our mistakes, and surely no era would be more inclined to indulge in this pride than one that calls itself “progressive.” And yet… One...
If you live in North America, particularly certain parts of the continental United States, you have just been treated to a solar eclipse. This rare and spectacular event (finally a chance to use an overused adjective correctly), by being both singularly grand and thoroughly beyond human control, puts me in mind of two reflections. First, from Herodotus we have one of the most...
Within two days of Donald Trump declaring, during his speech to the Muslim world, that the fight against “Islamic terror” is not a war of civilizations, the non-warriors representing the non-enemy civilization have struck again, killing at least twenty-two and injuring many more at a concert in Manchester, England. To be honest, I can’t quite get my head around what is so inflammatory about...
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