Even without a Christian civilization, Christianity remains a holy thing, but it would be a little thing. Partly because of a bad bargain that various Christian traditions made in coming to the United States, dominated after the War Between the States, by a liberal, non-Creedal form of Protestantism, Catholics and Orthodox and Lutherans and other … [Read more…]
Over the prolonged founding of the United States, we were bereft of the baggage of the past. In this lay our great promise. Over the prolonged founding of the United States, we were bereft of the baggage of the past. In this lay our possible madness, but so strangely decent and often gentle and kindly … [Read more…]
I’ll start with a link to another insightful and honest analysis by Paul Robinson, a seemingly true expert on Russia who is a professor at the University of Ottawa: Patriotism is enough. Western analysts often mistakenly describe the people now governing Russia as nostalgic for the Soviet Union, an idea which Putin’s recent statements about … [Read more…]
A good question: Why did Peter, the shepherd of the flock of Christ, go to Rome, the center of earthly power in its most centralized and most brutal manifestation yet seen. [In fact, we shouldn’t forget that China was at a similar level of power and wealth, but no higher so far as I know.] … [Read more…]
In The Return of Fear, Peter Frost, an anthropologist, gives a few facts which don’t argue fully against the current belief among Americans and Europeans that Muslim men are prone to violence and fanaticism; those facts do tell us of the ethnic basis for this inclination. Indonesians—88% Muslim—have low rates of violent crime, as do … [Read more…]
It’s not the failures but rather the great successes of the West which have left it as a hollowed-out and collapsing civilization, that is, our successes as individualists and our successes in nurturing our individualistic inclinations and pushing them ever further at the expense of our communalistic inclinations. It’s not hard to understand. Human being … [Read more…]
A large number of Americans, leading good lives in most ways, believe the United States is and always was a champion of justice and charity towards all nations when we really believe that the only good life is one ordered to the individualistic tendencies so attractive to those descended from the residents of northwestern Europeans. … [Read more…]
I have published two essays in this short series: Traditional Morality is Dead, Long Live Traditional Morality: A World of Evolution and Development and Traditional Morality is Dead, Long Live Traditional Morality: The Dangers of Understanding God’s Acts-of-being. Now I will write about the greater meaning of this line of thought. I’m writing in response … [Read more…]
Peter Frost, dissident anthropologist, wrote about some issues in the matter I’ve considered in recent blog essays—the formation of complex societies. See Mathematical Models of Human History: Are They Plausible? and A Different Model of the Growth of Centralized States in History. Frost’s article, The Agricultural Revolution That Wasn’t, looks at the broader issue of … [Read more…]
Shortly after I published my essay, Mathematical Models of Human History: Are They Plausible?, on the use of mathematical models in history, I saw an article by Stephanie Pappas summarizing some results of work done by Simon Powers, “a postdoctoral researcher in ecology and evolution at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.” Powers is working … [Read more…]