The beauty of history is that, with the passing of time, it’s easy to see the flaws of conventional wisdom. In science, medicine, economics, finance, and public policy, the years eventually reveal the errors of what people then thought were incontrovertible facts. Society would have been better off being skeptical of conventional wisdom. You would be better off being skeptical of conventional wisdom. Here’s why.
I hear this a lot from readers: “I like your columns but I don’t agree with you.” When I ask why they disagree I get stonewalled. “I just don’t.” People just aren’t open to changing their minds. This is a dangerous evolutionary relic which trumps reason and logic. It divides us into critical thinkers or sheeple. Which are you? (more…)
Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose.
—numerous attributions.
Everyone is demanding their “rights”. If the “rights” they demand take away my rights, are they “rights”?
Being on the libertarian end of the political spectrum (most freedom) I’m all for human rights—do your thing; just don’t make me do your thing or get in the way of me doing my thing.
This begs the question: “What are ‘rights’?”. This is a pretty deep philosophical issue that goes back millennia. (more…)
A movement is taking over America’s colleges and universities that rejects classical norms of reason, logic, and scholarship. This anti-intellectual trend is a road to totalitarianism.
What now passes for erudition in many liberal arts departments would not qualify as good scholarship using the proven tests of critical thinking. Worse, dissent is being shouted down, not debated. And many administrators support this trend making it, in effect, de facto campus policy.
This trend has all the hallmarks of societies that have gone totalitarian. (more…)
I read a news article by a tenured university professor who asserted that the perception that whites are more math proficient than minorities perpetuates “white privilege” and discriminates against minorities. The professor alleged that whites have an “unearned privilege” because math skills such as algebra and geometry are generally associated with whites. She attributed the “so-called achievement gap” between minorities and white students as a product of implicit or explicit racism due to white privilege. The professor said, in effect, that just because someone is good at math doesn’t mean they are really that smart.
She also said that “all knowledge is ‘relational,’ asserting that ‘Things cannot be known objectively; they must be known subjectively.’” What she meant is that there are no mathematical truths as we know them because students perceive things through their own cultural and political lenses which may be quite different than standard (“white”) perceptions. (more…)
Wars are battles of ideas, which is why ideas matter. This concept was brought home in the recently released movie, “Dunkirk” which I strongly urge you to see.
The movie is based on real events, events that threatened the very existence of our modern western civilization and its values.
For those of you who ditched your history classes, let me give you a synopsis. (more…)
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