The solution to the narrow focus of classical liberal arts education is to preserve their time-tested methods, but broaden their subject matter in both geography and time beyond ‘the Western Tradition’ as conventionally understood. In this piece, I summarize thousands […]
My favorite political scientist, Francis Fukuyama, seems to have a blind spot about the character of bureaucrats and public employees, failing to see that they are just as ‘patrimonial’, a word he uses a lot, as any other interest group. […]
This essay summarizes some of Francis Fukuyama’s historical perspective and insights on the problem ‘patrimonialism’ and its effect on society. I briefly suggest some ways to address patrimonialism, and also identify factors that shape patrimonialism in California and elsewhere. According […]
The United States has always been somewhat ambiguous about whether its primary loyalty was to the European Western World or to the Western Hemisphere (i.e., the Americas). The Founders thought of themselves as upholding the rights of Englishmen, which they […]
These days many people are trying to defend ‘Western Civilization’. Yet, at the moment, Western Civilization seems to be moving into Version 3.0, and the form it will take is not fully clear. So what, actually, are they trying to […]
This particular kingdom is also not one of the three that evangelicals regularly talk about, but in the training of missionaries and evangelists, we pay a lot of attention to it! ‘Missiology’ includes endless classes on culture, and how we […]
There is a lot of intellectual fuss about ‘authoritarianism’ nowadays, because of the rise of Donald Trump and what appears to be the overthrow of traditional ‘fusion’ conservatism. A long essay by Amanda Taub in “Vox” is the most thorough […]
It occurred to me that a possible precedent for Donald Trump might be none other than Richard Nixon. Now I think that Nixon was a far more intelligent man than Trump, and, for all his sins, a person of superior […]
The debate about ‘freedom from speech’ has accelerated. Greg Lukianoff, author of the Freedom from Speech broadside, has cooperated with Jonathan Haidt, an author I have quoted on Blue Kennel to write an article for The Atlantic criticizing the concept of […]
I am late getting out this post, which should be my last about China. China does not feel like Europe. It feels like America in some parallel universe. I had always hated the science fiction tales on TV that had […]