Rousseau

Wednesday

Chilton Williamson, Jr.

Democracy by numbers

The world of 2023, which scarcely speaks for the intelligence, the competence, or the success of the human race, does revive the age-old question of whether the individual is wiser than the species. One answer, stated in its simplest form, is the old saw that two heads are better than one. But is that true? And if so, are three heads better than two, und so weiter? Where do we come to the end of this? The key to the conundrum relates to government. Does oligarchy provide wiser rule than monarchy, aristocracy than oligarchy, and democracy than aristocracy? Consider the history of Britain and British government over the past centuries. Has democracy, in progressively greater measure, improved the management of British affairs since the eighteenth century?

democracy numbers

Tuesday

Roger Kimball

Why globalism is the enemy of freedom

I was recently asked to say a few words about “Globalism and Freedom” at a conference sponsored by Hillsdale College in Boise. Globalism, I said, is the enemy of freedom. Why? Because globalism systematically attacks and undermines the moral and political filiations that make genuine freedom possible. In order to understand why this should be so, we must begin by pondering the word “globalism” and its adjectival personification “globalist.” Neither occurs in my thirteen-volume edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which dates from the early 1960s. What does that tell us? For one thing, it tells us that the term “globalism” and its cognates are neologisms. Neologisms come into being for a couple of different reasons.

globalism

Saturday

Ian Sansom

Who needs Jordan Peterson when we have Ferdinand Mount?

You will by now doubtless be familiar with the University of Toronto academic Jordan Peterson. He’s the unlikely YouTube star and scourge of political correctness whose book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos has become a worldwide bestseller, beloved of serious young men seeking intellectual challenge and good old-fashioned fatherly advice. Summary: ‘Sort yourself out, bucko.’ We don’t really need the likes of Peterson here: we’ve got Ferdinand Mount. The book we should all be reading to sort ourselves out, buckos, is Prime Movers. Mount is, admittedly, an unlikely intellectual hero.