You’ve got to hand it to Mr. McArthur—it’s quite a feat to use an individualist argument to indict modern society for its lack of care for the whole. It’s doubly impressive to make such an argument in precisely the ‘disenchanted’ vocabulary of modernity that Weber was talking about. All this talk of rational calculation of …
Author Archives: Ryan Williams
CONCUR: TWO CHEERS FOR THE INTERNET
I would just add a few thoughts to this discussion, both in the hopes of tempering Mr. Goodwin’s boundless libertarian optimism and adding some historical perspective. Do we really think it’s simply true that the anonymity of the internet fosters extremism, or to put it less hyperbolically, immoderation? Consider ancient Athens at, say, 350 or …
Dissent: A few More Musings
This has been touched upon, in many ancillary ways, by the many thoughtful responses already up on this topic of the moral dilemma of Mr. Benavides’s wood, but I would like to reiterate the bewildering thicket of assumptions underlying the original question. (I’ll mention as a side note that the assumptions get to the heart …
DISSENT: What’s the big deal?
First, I find it somewhat difficult to get very invested in what seems like a relatively trivial matter. The high school policy is voluntary; it’s a little creepy, sure, but I doubt very many high school students will get all that caught up in questions of reward and punishment or the greater implications following from …
Dissent: Let’s Have Less Transparency
As a matter of fact, I don’t have much to add to Bill’s post or Felix’s response—except I will say that as an “elite” voter by the literature’s standards, I rarely find myself consulting the quotidian details of a candidate’s or congressman’s contributors. Maybe this is a flaw in the methodology of my politician assessment …
Dissent: The Centrality of Judgment
I find A’s listing of propositions a bit robotic. For easy reference, I’ll list them again: (1) it is morally required to give to beggars and immoral to refuse; (2) it is morally salutary to give to beggars, but it is not required; (3) it is morally neutral to give to beggars; or (4) it …