Category Archives: culture

Bolsheviks and other Millenarians

If I had to choose one book to read about the Bolsheviks this year it would be The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution by Yuri Slezkine. Writing in the New York Review of Books Benjamin Nathans … Continue reading

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“Natural Rights” and Other Myths

Writing in the American Conservative, Will Collins reviews  Against the Grain,  “James C. Scott’s new history of humanity’s transition (devolution may be the more appropriate term) from hunting and gathering to sedentary farming challenges the very foundations of this narrative. After finishing … Continue reading

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Halloween, Elsa and the Index Simulacrorum Prohibitorum

Cross-posted on the Corner. Kyle has already discussed the controversy over Halloween Moana here, concluding as follows: The Left used to insist on seeing people as individuals, not as members of groups. The goal used to be that kids of different … Continue reading

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Media Suddenly Interested in Muslim Opinion of Gays

After years of ignoring survey data and news reports that weren’t conducive to boosting Islam’s image, so-called new media is leaping on a Pew survey showing American Muslims to be more LGBTQ-tolerant than white evangelicals. Yes, just that particular strain of Christianity, … Continue reading

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“The worst method of dying, except for all the others”

An extract (published in the latest New Yorker) from Dying: A Memoir, a book written by the late Cory Taylor, written as she contemplated her approaching death from cancer: Yes, I have considered suicide, and it remains a constant temptation. If … Continue reading

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Anti-SJW Sentiment in China

I say anti-SJW, though it could just as easily apply to plain ol’ regular cosmopolitan globalists, I suppose. Here’s an interesting article at openDemocracy on the use of “white left” in China as a racial-cum-political epithet: If you look at any … Continue reading

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The Social Justice Left and…the Social Justice Left

In a piece that reads as if it’s describing campus leftism but is apparently not, Reuters reports, Since President Donald Trump’s election, monthly lectures on social justice at the 600-seat Gothic chapel of New York’s Union Theological Seminary have been filled … Continue reading

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Pope Francis and “Fake News”

It was perhaps not that surprising that Pope Francis would look to involve himself in the controversy over ‘fake news’. The terms in which he did so were, however, unexpected…. The Guardian reports: Pope Francis has lambasted media organisations that … Continue reading

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The Other “Identity Liberalism”

Mark Lilla’s piece for The NYT, “The End of Identity Liberalism,” has been making the rounds lately, and for good reason. See passages like this: For a full year I read only European publications, not American ones. My thought was … Continue reading

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Morrigan’s Hotel

Writing in The Guardian, Alex Mar explains how making a documentary film “about a handful of fringe religious communities around the country” led her deep into the pagan world. The article is an interesting account of where the search for … Continue reading

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