September 2023
Anti-Modernization Movements
It is one thing to be nostalgic about the "good old days," but another to actually be hostile to modernization. Two current institutions are promoting the anti-modernization movement: the dictatorships around the world and the Republican Authoritarian party in our own country. Both are part of the pushback against all the things that have made America a modern country over the past several centuries.
The earliest anti-modernization movement in America was the southern push more...
America: Good and bad
Just when we think we know what kind of country we are, history comes in to correct the record. We currently have Reactionary governors who want our children to uncritically love our country and think it the best in the world. On the extreme other side Radical Leftists want our children to see our dark underbelly, slavery and its consequences, and dwell on it.
These two extreme views fail our children, who, unlike other children in democracies around the world, are taugh more...
The New Anarchy (2 of 2))
Our own times seem so divided, so violent, that we cannot imagine that we experienced such political violence before. Yet we have indeed: just before the Civil War, after the failure of the Reconstruction (lynchings and attacks on Black towns), and in a series of anarchist assassinations of world leaders, starting with President William McKinley in 1901.
In 1908, an anarchist shot a Catholic priest who had just given him communion. In 1910, a dynamite attack on the Los An more...
The New Anarchy (1 of 2)
Anarchy is a fascinating and recurring political philosophy. Anarchists do not believe in government. They believe that after the collapse of governments, the people will live their lives freely, take care of themselves, and eliminate evil from the world. Almost all revolutions (except for the one that founded the United States) follow the anarchist pattern.
The French Revolution in 1789 was supposed to bring about a brave new world in which people called each other "citizen" and more...
The French Revolution in 1789 was supposed to bring about a brave new world in which people called each other "citizen" and more...