The Paradox of Individualism vs. Individuality
I have become fascinated by a paradox that runs like a connecting thread through much that seems to me most problematic about our culture: that those who talk the most about individualism seem most...
View ArticlePaul Ryan’s ideal: Ayn Rand and the nihilism of the American right
By naming her as his favorite thinker, and requiring his staffers to read her, Paul Ryan has brought the right wing’s dominant yet usually little mentioned philosopher to center stage, where she...
View ArticleCities and the incoherence of libertarian theory and practice
One of the top right-wing illusions about reality (there are so many) is that high taxes and regulations are always bad for businesses, and reducing both will attract them. It comes from their apparent...
View ArticleThe Pagan community neeeds to repudiate libertarianism as it currently exists
After some frustrating encounters with Pagans who called themselves libertarians I decided to write why Pagans once had a libertarian connection and why there really is no longer any reason to do so...
View ArticleExploring economic freedom as if freedom and people actually mattered
Two quotations, juxtaposed, summarize the errors into which modern American defenses of ‘free markets’ and capitalism have entered. In the process these errors led to abandoning any real meaning for...
View ArticleLiberalism, Conservatism and spirituality, Part III: the crisis of nihilism...
Witches and Pagans now has Part III of my essay on liberalism, conservatism, their intellectual and moral collapse and what spiritualities of immanence might be able to do to revitalize them. If you...
View ArticleTurning the Tables: The pathologies and unrealized promise of libertarianism
As a scholar and former libertarian, I have been disappointed at libertarians’ general failure to engage in serious debate with their critics, but I have also been disappointed with most critics’...
View ArticleFoster Gamble Again
A couple of days ago I received an email from a Pagan list connecting to a “New Paradigm” conference where prominent speakers would be libertarians mixing a dose of conspiracy theory, libertarian...
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