It is impossible to change people’s minds. Every new fact is taken as confirmation of pre-existing bias, every criticism of our in-group taken as a sign of the critic’s bad faith. We are more sure than ever that we are more sure than ever, we are of one
Estimates of the headcount for the Tea Party protests of 2009 vary, but no one can deny their long-term significance. While the protests themselves were only organized in the loosest sense, their impact on our politics and culture can be seen mostly in the response of formal organizations to the
America is a nation overflowing with love for our sports, if not always for our teams. There is a special place in our hearts for those most American of sports: football, baseball, and basketball. What could be more American than the spirited and divisive team rivalries, overcome only by a
The power of the written word is hard to overestimate. The printing press is usually blamed for the European wars of religion, with the resulting multiplication in ways of life ranging from Calvin’s Geneva to Puritan Massachusetts and the Dutch experiment in toleration. Later, the Republic of Letters would
One common approach for discrediting an opponent’s ideas without engaging with them on their merits is to attempt to place them in an unsavory history. Critics since Nietzsche and his On the Genealogy of Morality have been drawn to the power of this method. Recent projects in this spirit
Drawing primarily on Karl Popper, Oliver Traldi argues that hot take culture diminishes our desire or ability to quietly reflect on events. In addition, they subsume complex human events into simplistic and pre-determined theories. Against this, I will draw on Charles Taylor’s philosophy of language and Hans-Georg Gadamer’s
It has been almost eight months since Donald Trump took office. If the rest of his term looks like these first months, we may have dodged a bullet. Rather than the authoritarian we feared, we would end up with a buffoon who almost reflexively self-destructs. In spite of having both
“Hot take” is among the most withering of insults available to describe a piece of opinion writing these days. We are told that the proclivity to author such “takes” is a symptom of frivolity or cynicism. Beyond their not-so-hot quality, the quantity of “takes” is also supposed to be a
Those who have wrestled with the frustrating but seemingly trivial topic of political labels know that to embark on an analysis is to trace the contours of the snake devouring its own tail. It wastes time and energy to create further confusing distinctions which no one else is likely to
Political correctness and campus speech politics are among the cultural issues keeping libertarians today from recognizing their place within the community of liberals. Libertarians see themselves as defenders of freedom of speech and expression, as well as scientific investigation, while liberals and the left take up the role of thought
The sources and extent of coercion in a society is one of the big fault lines that divides the different currents of liberalism. Paul Crider’s remark that “Coercion is an unsavory but unavoidable aspect of living with other people” offended several of our readers, while many of the comments
After nearly one month and over a dozen articles, Liberal Currents is off to the races. But some people have asked where we are coming from, something that we tried to address in The New Liberal. The following will pick up where that piece left off, focusing specifically on who