Agonblog

Even though he never said it, Francis Bacon is famous for the dictum, “Knowledge is power.” Like many stories we receive as history, this one is fiction. But despite the misattribution of the saying, it expresses an important truth. Let us approach that truth carefully.

The Two Coalitions

In living memory, there have been […]

If one can view the following three videos synoptically, no more is necessary to understand why Hillary Clinton must not be president:

First, she is the avatar of oligarchic status quo:

(Note: this video confuses democracy and small-“r” republicanism, and the solutions it suggests are sophomoric and doomed to failure. But focus on […]

The United States of America was the first country in history to be founded, explicitly, on any philosophy, and is still the only country in history to have been founded on the principle of individual rights. It had taken thousands of years for a series of heroes, Aristotle foremost among them — aided by […]

Before we begin, please take a few minutes to put yourself into the mindset of a medieval monk. Listening to as much of this music as you can sit through is the best way I know of to do that on short notice:

When I hear this, I can imagine waking long before […]

It’s been said that, “[s]ome men are born posthumously.” Of no one is this more true than of Aristotle — who hasn’t been born even yet.

Aristotle’s logic, his gift-wrapping of the method of reason for all of humanity, was eventually reborn in Europe because it was uniquely useful. Its usefulness, and that of […]

Imagine the recent Olympic Games had gone differently. In the 100-meter final, Usain Bolt notices a stranger at the starting blocks one lane over from his. He puzzles for a moment, shrugs it off, and takes position. The starting gun fires. Bolt runs superbly to a 9.81, but, to his astonishment, crosses the line […]

Western civilization had begun toying with something entirely new when Thales and those who followed him began the reasoned investigation of nature. But these efforts were not systematic enough or sustained enough to distinguish Western civilization’s inchoate version of science from other civilizations’ similar efforts. More importantly, science itself is not the essential or […]

Picture a practical joke, played by an older brother on his younger brother. The little brother is having cereal for breakfast. He pours out a serving from the cereal box, which is nearly full, and so has some small heft. The big brother distracts him, “Look behind you!” As the little brother looks away, […]

I have said that Western civilization faces a crucial choice: elect Donald Trump and struggle a little longer for life, or elect Hillary Clinton and resign itself to suicide. But what is Western civilization? What does it matter if it lives or dies?

Western civilization is the civilization “west of Greece,” the civilization that […]