Topic: Art and Culture

Herbert Spencer on Equal Liberty and the Free Society

– April 24, 2020

The world in which we presently live, unfortunately, demonstrates that we are still far from fully being those human beings developed in their character and senses of right and wrong to properly understand and defend our own freedom and that of others, as well.

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The Idiocracy Experiment

– April 18, 2020

While a few courageous governors have refused to order lockdowns or massive business closures, most Americans remain locked in what appears to be a giant Milgram experiment testing how far they are willing to go down an increasingly irrational path, egged on by authority figures whose unconstitutional dictates need not be followed.

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Bounty Hunters and Privateers in The Mandalorian

– March 30, 2020

Even if we had put bounties of billions on the heads of Osama bin Laden and his henchmen, we likely could have gotten a similar result at a much lower cost than the trillions we have spent on war since 9/11/01. I suspect there would have been a lot less collateral damage.

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Coronavirus as Ideology

– March 29, 2020

Even now, many people aren’t reading news or looking at data. They are confirming their biases. Our political culture has fully bled – a tsunami of blood – into one of the most essential tasks of civilization: caring for and curing the sick, and hence drowning rationality, science, and medical professionalism, and doing so at the expense of a billion lives.

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Tradition and Why the Russians are Who They Are

– March 10, 2020

As much as we as individuals and groups of people may try to and think we have untied ourselves from the ideas, customs and traditions of the past, to think anew and independently of what has preceded us, we can never completely uncouple ourselves from the cultural inheritance.

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Frozen Makes It Rain on Broadway

– March 4, 2020

We are all versions of Elsa in her old kingdom. We are expected to submit, to comply, to keep quiet, to carry out our duties to the political order. Conceal. Don’t feel. It’s the tyranny of the status quo that people continue to tolerate because no one is permitted to think another way.

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West Side Story, Sixty Years On

– February 25, 2020

Now comes our own rumble called election year, and the weapons of choice keep escalating: fists, hoses, belts, chains, knives, guns, and where does it end? There is a lesson here for all of us, and it is fitting that the remake on Broadway makes this obvious parallel explicit.

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What Brilliant TikTok Reveals about Human Creativity

– February 17, 2020

I used to make it a habit to try out all the latest social technology, if only to observe its function, rules, and contribution to the culture. That habit stopped last year during the “techlash:” I too found myself convinced that we’ve probably overind …

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How Negativity Wrecks Relationships and Businesses

– February 13, 2020

In relationships, all the good things are drowned by hostile tones, eye rolls, denials of responsibility, along with insults. The same holds true in business.

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“Parasite” Is a Preposterous Film Rooted in Class-Struggle Nonsense

– February 6, 2020

To be fair, movies are supposed to be escapist to some degree. And the stories, to be good, must be a little bit implausible. Fine, except that with Parasite Bong Joon-ho is thoroughly insulting the intelligence of his viewers.

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Shakira Super Bowl

Shakira’s Musical Disquisition on Uncertainty, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship

– February 4, 2020

Shakira’s performance at the Super Bowl halftime was of course, as one would expect, incredibly wonderful. She has a history of providing more than entertainment, however. Her song “Try Everything” from the thrilling animated film Zootopia offers a dee …

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The Super Bowl Proves that America Is Not Broken

– February 3, 2020

The whole effect of the awesome sights and sounds of this year’s Super Bowl – which, let us not forget, is an achievement of private enterprise – was to underscore what most of us know in our hearts. Our civilization is not falling apart.

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