Alan Jacobs

Michael Gerson:

The collapse of one disastrous form of Christian social engagement should be an opportunity for the emergence of a more faithful one. And here there are plenty of potent, hopeful Christian principles lying around unused by most evangelicals: A consistent and comprehensive concern for the weak and vulnerable in our society, including the poor, immigrants and refugees. A passion for racial reconciliation and criminal justice reform, rooted in the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity. A deep commitment to public and global health, reflecting the priorities of Christ’s healing ministry. An embrace of political civility as a civilizing norm. A commitment to the liberty of other people’s religions, not just our own. An insistence on public honesty and a belief in the transforming power of unarmed truth.

My friends at The New Atlantis have posted an informative and slightly worrying Q&A about the new covid strain. A necessary read, even if we in America also have other things to worry about.

If you do not subscribe to The New Atlantis you really should. They are doing vital work, which they describe here.

Dostoevsky’s Demons is often read as a denunciation of a spineless liberalism that makes way for a nihilistic radicalism. But the fundamental problem with Stepan Verkhovensky, the father of the revolutionary Pyotr Verkhovensky, is not that he’s a naïve liberal — though in fact he is that. No, what Dostoevsky ruthlessly exposes is the sheer effete frivolity of Stepan Trofimovich and people like him. Stepan Trofimovich loves playing at being a dangerous figure: pretending to explore radical ideas, enjoying his sense of himself as a fearless intellectual unrestrained by convention and tradition. He delights in the pretense because he has the serene confidence that it’s all a game: No one would ever take such ideas seriously, the existing social order could never be disrupted, his peace and comfort would remain untouchable. And the little frisson of self-delight at saying something risqué would always be available to him.

That’s Senator Josh Hawley this morning expressing his solidarity with the crowd that would soon storm the Capitol building, trash it, and parade around inside it with Confederate flags. (Yes, they’re patriots all right — but of what patria?) I’m sure he never saw it coming. Nor did my own Senator Ted Cruz. It was all a game to these senators, an enjoyable and rewarding game, to connive at the frothing-at-the-mouth rage of the Trumpistanis, to cheer them on, to pose as their advocates and spokesmen. What harm could come of it?

Trump, he loves this. He loves the bile, the wrath, the mockery. It’s a well-done steak to him, with extra ketchup. But Hawley and Cruz? I bet they are befuddled and mystified. How could it possibly have come to this? They are, then, our own Stepan Trofimoviches. It was all a game to them, until it wasn’t. They are, like him, utterly frivolous. If they had any dignity, any moral backbone, they would resign their offices. But the very frivolity that led them, and us, to this pass is the vice that will prevent them from acting honorably. I hope I am wrong, but I expect they will go to their graves thinking How could we have known? 

Well, it’s nice to see how much more peaceful and orderly things are now that we’ve flipped the calendar to 2021.

The events occurring in the United States Capitol building as I write offer a certain clarity about the issues I raised in a recent post. You can have America or Trumpistan. You can have a country in which leaders are chosen in democratic elections, in which citizens and their elected representatives can dissent from the will of the executive without fearing for their lives, in which other elected representatives will uphold the laws they have sworn to uphold rather than twist and pervert those laws in order to accommodate the tyrannical and the hateful, in which power is transferred in legally-guaranteed peace; or you can live in the country the people who are storming the Capitol right now want you to have. Pick.

I wrote about a new kind of school: The School for Scale.

Musa al-Gharbi:

In fact, the more intelligent, educated, or rhetorically skilled one is, the less likely it becomes that someone will change their minds when confronted with evidence or arguments that challenge their priors. There are two big tendencies driving this phenomenon.

The first is that in virtue of knowing more about the world, or being better at arguing, etc. people are just better equipped to find ways of punching holes in inconvenient facts, or finding reasons to justify ‘sticking to their guns.’ Indeed, one becomes more likely to really enjoy arguing – and to engage in political research and arguments as a hobby — as they grow more intellectually and rhetorically capable.

Perhaps surprising, but also somewhat intuitive if you think about it, highly-educated or intelligent people tend to be far more ideological than the general public. They are more likely to be partisan, to be obsessed with some moral-political cause, or to use some intellectual framework or idealized model to interpret the world.

And while educated people may be less likely to discriminate against others on the basis of factors like race, they are significantly more likely to be prejudiced against people who think differently than them, or hold different ideological commitments.

Follow the links for more details. 

I have a policy that I recommend to you. When I hear a politician who wants my vote, or a pundit who claims to explain what’s happening in politics and society, I ask one fundamental question: Does this person live on Planet Earth? And if the answer is No, which quite often it is, then I pay no further attention to that person.