I’m deeply saddened—indeed, gutted—to learn about the tragic death of my dissertation advisor, Gordon S. Wood. Professor Wood was America’s greatest living scholar of the America’s revolutionary-founding period and quite possibly the greatest of all time. Even though he was 92, he was still as intellectually active as he was when I met first him 40 years ago. (I will link to a few of his interviews and lectures below.)

When I arrived at Brown University in 1986 to do my Ph.D., I was there for one reason only: to study with Professor Wood. He was already a giant in field. I wanted to study with the best, and he was the best.

Professor Wood’s first and most famous book was The Creation of the American Republic (1969), which revolutionized the study of the American founding. Creation forever changed the way historians and political theorists thought about the founding period. His second book, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1991), was a stunningly original interpretation of the revolution and the ways in which it revolutionized American society. Many wonderful books followed, including a thoroughly charming biography of Benjamin Franklin (The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin), a massive reinterpretation of the politics of the 1790s (Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815), and an extraordinarily elegant dual biography of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson). And there were many other books.

I could say many things about my personal relationship with Professor Wood, but I shall limit myself to just two stories.

The first involves the writing of my dissertation. Shortly after I’d taken my Ph.D. General Exams, Professor Wood invited me to the Faculty Club to have lunch with him. At a certain point, he said to me: “Thompson, I know you’re not happy here. My advice is to move to Boston, write your dissertation, and send it to me when it’s done.”

That’s exactly what I did. Initially, I was not particularly happy with Professor’s Wood’s advice. It sure seemed as though I had been abandoned. By contrast, he typically worked relatively closely with most of his other graduate students, reading their dissertations chapter by chapter as they were being written and commenting on them.

During my time in Boston (Somerville to be exact), I worked in the bowels of Widener library at Harvard day and night for two years. During those two years, I never spoke to Professor Wood, not even once. When the dissertation was finished, I (snail) mailed him 600 pages, not a word of which he read until he received the rather large package in the post. Several weeks later, the phone in my flat rang. When I answered, the voice at the other end said, “Brad, it’s Gordon Wood. I’ve just read the first 200 pages of your dissertation and it’s brilliant! You don’t need to change anything!”

When we hung up, I was overjoyed, but I was also overwhelmed with a sense of guilt. What I knew but he didn’t was that the last quarter of the dissertation was a critique of him! He never called back to talk about the rest of the dissertation.

But here’s the point: by sending me to Boston, he did the very best thing that he ever could have done for me. He liberated me from his massive influence. Only later did I realize (and then he subsequently told me) that he banished me to Boston because he knew I didn’t need him to write my dissertation. He knew that I could do it on my own. Most importantly, what he really did was to set me free. During those two years in Boston, I developed a kind of intellectual independence that was—and has been—vitally important to my intellectual development. For better or worse, that dissertation was 100% me.

The second thing Professor Wood did for me was to share a piece of advice that I’ve never forgotten. He told me to “think big,” which is precisely what he did in his books. He advised me to write on grand topics—the topics that have scores if not hundreds of books written on them already (e.g., the American Revolution)—but to try and see and say things no one else has seen or said before. In both Creation and Radicalism, Professor Wood completely reconceptualized the way scholars saw and thought about the revolutionary-founding period.

Specifically, he advised me to not engage with other scholars in my books, at least not in the body of text. If you engage with other scholars that means, he said, that you’re letting them set the terms of debate, and, more importantly, it means that you don’t really have anything interesting or original to say. The key is to live with the primary sources and to search for new meaning in them.

He told me once that the key to being a great historian or political theorist was to look for and see the things that other scholars don’t see—to see the unseen. When I think about the meaning and importance of Professor Wood’s books, I’m reminded of what a European diplomat once said of John Adams: “He saw large subjects largely.”

In addition to the senseless tragedy of his untimely death, I’m particularly saddened by the fact that I will never get to have that “last talk” with him in which I was going to ask him all the questions that I’d been storing up for decades.

The truth is, he was supposed to come to Clemson on July 24 to participate in our John Adams Fellows Program. This new program is for graduate students from around the United States who work on the American founding. The plan was for me to have a semi-public conversation with him to be witnessed by a new generation of scholars about to launch their careers. Here a few of the questions I was going to ask him:

• If you could write another book, what would you write on?

• If you were to write a book on a topic other than early American history, what might you work on?

• What are the great unexplored topics in early American history that you would advise graduate students today to work on?

• What do you think is your greatest contribution to scholarship on the American revolutionary-founding period?

• What are the best books on the American revolution and the American founding other than your own?

• How is your work on the American founding similar to and different from the scholarship of political theorists (particularly the students of Leo Strauss) who work on the founding?

• Who were the greatest historians of the American Revolution prior to World War II?

• Which historians would you recommend as models of graceful writing?

• Which scholars have most influenced your work?

• What are the qualities and attributes that make a great historian?

• What advice would you give to graduate students who might want to carry on your legacy?

Unfortunately, I’ll never get to ask these questions, and we’ll never know his answers to them.

Gordon S. Wood was a gentleman and a scholar of the highest order. We will never see the likes of him again.

May his memory be a blessing for all of us. R.I.P.

This essay is the most important in my series on marriage. It states mostly clearly what I think marriage is and why it’s the most important institution ever invented by man. The audio version of this talk is at the bottom of the page, which I’m making free to all subscribers (paid and unpaid) in the hope that you will share this essay with friends, colleagues, and family.

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“What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life—to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?”— George Eliot, Adam Bede (1859)

Marriage has existed, as we all know, in every society known to man. Its core principles developed spontaneously around the world over millennia free of State control. We also know that its forms and formalities (e.g., wedding ceremonies) have differed from one culture and religion to another, and all have changed over time. The accoutrements of marriage in sixteenth-century Persia were different from those of eighteenth-century Paris and both are different from marriage in twenty-first century Las Vegas.

In times past (and in some places around the world today), marriage was dictated by wealth, status, dynastic considerations, parental fiat, and patriarchy. The major world religions (e.g., Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism) all have their own marriage rites and traditions. Even within Christendom, the marriage rites and rituals of Catholics and Protestants differ dramatically, and within Protestantism they differ among Lutherans, Baptists, Anglicans, and every other denomination. Marriage is a sacrament for Catholics, a covenant for Calvinists, and something else for Mormons. And yet, certain basic principles and characteristics remain fixed from place to place over time.

Why is that? Why should the core purposes and functions transcend time and place? The answers to these questions are more important in the twenty-first century than in any other time in world history.

What marriage Is

The first section of this essay peels away the secondary attributes of marriage in order to reveal its essential core. Understanding and defining what marriage is, is the heart of the matter. Rationally understood, marriage is a complex social institution—part moral vow, part legal contract, part political license, part cultural norm—that creates and defines a particular kind of moral-legal relationship between a man and a woman. Marriage takes two unique individuals and creates something new—a married couple—that is now to be treated by the law as a single unit. It formalizes, consummates, integrates, solemnizes, objectifies, and perpetuates the biological necessities and the romantic union of a man and a woman through a public declaration sanctioned by law that this couple shall be henceforth and forever treated as one. Marriage, the most private and intimate of all personal actions, is a public act.

As a concept, marriage has specific referents in reality (i.e., its constituent parts include men and women who become grooms and brides and then husbands and wives to each other), a proximate cause (i.e., the desire to consummate romantic love spiritually and physically), specific characteristics (e.g., monogamy, exclusivity, and permanence), and a central purpose (i.e., the potential bearing and rearing of children who become sons or daughters to their mother and father). The unity of these elements, causes, characteristics, and purposes defines what marriage is.

Put in Aristotelian terms, marriage has a material cause, an efficient cause, a final cause, and a formal cause. Its material cause—the material from which it is made—is one man and one woman; its efficient cause—the motivation and action that put it in motion—is sexual attraction and romantic love; its final cause—the purpose or function for which it exists—is the bearing, rearing, and protection of children as a family; and its formal cause—the form by which it actualizes its purpose—is monogamy, exclusivity, and permanence.

Epistemologically, the concept marriage refers to a certain kind of relationship defined by certain kinds of actions between the institution’s existential referents (i.e., husbands and wives) and their connection to a larger community. The relationship that is marriage and the unique actions that go with it, are, always have been, and must be gender specific and gender connected. The concept marriage necessitates certain ostensive referents that are metaphysically absolute. A marital union without husbands and wives is more than a contradiction in terms; it is disconnected from metaphysical reality; nay, it represents the disintegration (i.e., the destruction) of the concept.

Furthermore, the epistemological meaning of marriage is inseparable from its purpose. This is easily demonstrated. That marriage is directed to one objective end is demonstrated by an irrefutable counterfactual or reverse inference: there is no state in the American union, nor is there any nation in the world that permits biological brothers and sisters (or mothers and sons or fathers and daughters) to marry. And with good reason. Biological siblings typically carry common recessive genes, and any incestuous sexual reproduction often leads to children with serious congenital defects and disorders. The institution of marriage is designed to encourage health families and healthy individuals.

What’s more, imbedded in the concepts “husband” or “wife” are innumerable seen and unseen cultural mores and moral norms that guide the complex and particular functions and actions that define marriage. The specific and unique actions between a married man and a woman are component parts of a special kind of relationship that is distinguished from all other relationships within the broader community in which they live. Moreover, the concept marriage distinguishes this kind of particular relationship from all other male-female relationships. One important purpose of wearing a wedding ring is, for instance, to send a signal to all people outside this particular marriage that the parties are taken and not participants in the romantic or sexual market. To arbitrarily change the definition of marriage and disconnect it from its metaphysical and epistemological foundation would be to introduce conceptual and therefore moral, social, and political anarchy into an institution that encompasses what is probably the most important social-legal relationship known to man.

Let’s turn now to the actions that add up to and define the relationship known as “marriage.”

First, marriage marries. It is a coming together and a kind of reconciliation that unites in one two very different kinds of people, the two great halves of humanity (i.e., a man and a woman with their profound physical and psychological differences), each of whom seeks lasting fulfillment and joy in a life lived together. Epistemologically, marriage encapsulates and defines a specific relationship. Legally, marriage recognizes a new unit out consisting of dissimilar entities. It reconciles biologically distinct and sexually asymmetrical adults, who nonetheless share a sexual complementarity that has the potential to create new human life sharing the DNA of both parents. The primary purpose of marriage brings new life into society and then connects that new life legally with its biological mother and father.

Second, marriage is created by the voluntary actions of a man and a woman in a public ceremony—a wedding, which has various rites and rituals that serve an important social function. It is a rite of passage marking the transition from one moral-social-legal condition to another. Marriage is initiated by a vow—a declaration witnessed by the public and recognized by the government. This vow is part personal, part public. A man and woman promise to each other and declare to their community that they shall be true to each other and forsake all others forever and that they shall care for each other in sickness and in health. (Why do they do this? Why should anyone care?)

Third, the primary actions that define relational parts of marriage are gender specific. Marriage transforms men and women into husbands and wives and then into fathers and mothers. It defines the rights and responsibilities of husbands and wives toward each other and of mothers and fathers toward their children; and it sends cultural signals to the rest of society defining the relationship between married and unmarried men and women.

And finally, the underlying assumption of marriage is that husbands and wives will raise all children born to them. The vow of marriage therefore has a kind of (non-religious) sacred responsibility attached to it. It is much more than a private contract or a negotiated deal of cohabitation. Arguably, it is the most important decision an individual will ever make.

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Marriage Stakeholders

To better understand the full complexity and meaning of marriage, it must also be seen from the perspectives of its four natural stakeholders: 1) the men and women who seek to marry; 2) the children born to a married couple; 3) the community of relatives, friends, and neighbors in which the married couple lives; and 4) the government whose job it is to protect the rights of married couples and any children they might have.

From the perspective of individual men and women, the moral relationship that is marriage begins with a choice—the selfish, moral choice of a man and a woman to protect and perpetuate their romantic relationship as a husband and a wife in the context of civil society. Men and women choose a future spouse from innumerable potential options. They do so for entirely selfish reasons. Person “A” chooses person “B” instead of persons “X,” “Y,” or “Z” because of the pleasures, satisfaction, and joy that “A” receives from “B.” Marriage as a duty is an entirely immoral concept. Marriage is first and foremost a volitional moral bond between a man and a woman, who create for themselves a whole new private universe motivated and held together by their mutually assured love. This means, first, that the self-interest of the husband and the self-interest of the wife have largely, though not entirely, merged as one. Marriage should never involve sacrifice. If one’s spouse is one’s highest value, then giving up all lower values is not and cannot be a sacrifice. It means that both husband and wife elevate the other to a privileged place in his or her life such that each is self-interestedly concerned with the happiness and wellbeing of the other. Legally, men and women seek marriage to protect their rights as a single unit. Marriage is a rights-protecting institution.

Another important angle from which to view marriage is from the all-too-forgotten perspective of children. It bears asking: what do children need and want, and to what do they have a right? In other words, what is owed to children in the context of marriage?

Children have a strong rights-based claim to be raised by their biological parents. This claim is based on one crucial fact: children come into the world as helpless beings dependent entirely on adults to survive. The responsibility to satisfy this right redounds morally to the child’s natural mother and father, who in turn have a self-interested stake in the well-being of their biological child. We also know that children have a powerful desire to be raised by the two people who gave them life and brought them into the world. Virtually all children have a genuine longing to experience the different forms of love and affection expressed by a biological mother and father. Marriage provides the institutional structure by which adult society protects the rights and interests of children, and it protects the natural bond between parents and their children from outside interference.

Marriage is also a social institution. Its vows are witnessed and sanctioned by the community—by our relatives, friends, and neighbors. For better or worse, all societies everywhere have shown a real interest in the institution of marriage, and most people share an interest in the success of other people’s marriage. It is in our self-interest that marriages succeed. Social chaos typically comes with cultures that don’t respect marriage. Social science literature for over fifty years has clearly and unequivocally demonstrates that the break-up of the two-parent family in the United States is the direct and principal cause of crime and social chaos in many American communities.

A decent, civil society begins with marriage and the family. The social function of marriage is to provide an objective structure in which the sometimes-volatile intellectual-emotional-physical union of men and women can find order, stability, and protection. From the perspective of society, marriage encourages men and women to unite sexually in a responsible way so that the community may create a future for itself. Marriage also creates new relationships and actions between the married couple and the community in which they live. It ends the “next of kin” legal connection between an adult son/daughter and his or her parents, and it establishes each married partner as the other’s legal next of kin; it establishes rights and responsibilities relative to joint property, executorship, and the custody and care of children; and it announces to the world that any child born to a married woman is presumed to have been fathered by her husband, who now must assume certain responsibilities. As a social institution, marriage creates millions upon millions of small, private, self-interested, rights-bearing platoons that are protected by the fortress of the law.

Finally, the role of government in marriage is limited but important. The first thing to note is that government should be in the rights-protecting and not in the love-promoting business. Love is and should be invisibilis to government. A rights-protecting government should care not one whit about love. Government’s only proper purpose is to protect individual rights, and that’s its sole function in marriage. From the government’s perspective, the institution of marriage is a rights-enhancing, rights-protecting institution, which means that government has a legitimate role in protecting the individual rights of the various parties involved in marriage. Marriage properly recognizes a constellation of rights that are meant to 1) insure that both parties fulfill their chosen marital obligations; 2) protect married couples and their children from outside interference; and 3) protect children from abuse, neglect, and abandonment. The government’s attitude toward marriage should be one of laissez faire or salutary neglect. (I shall have more to say on this specific topic in a forthcoming essay.)

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Why Marriage?

Morally, socially, and institutionally, marriage captures a core human truth that distinguishes it from all other human relationships. It is rooted in the sexual difference, complementarity, and asymmetry of men and women and in the experience that all societies have with reconciling the complex but necessary sexual relations between men and women. Marriage universally was, is, and will forever be society’s macro-solution to the problem of human generation and survival. (While it is true that the socio-legal institution of marriage was and is organized for ordered reproduction as a central, organizing purpose, procreation is not a necessary pre-condition of any particular marriage. Infertile couples and those who choose not to have children are in fact married. Still, we must never forget that marriage was, is, and must be rooted metaphysically, epistemologically, morally, sociologically, and culturally on a model of partnership that is nonetheless connected to human procreation. But for that fact, the difference between marriage and all other kinds of partnerships would be one of degree only rather than one of kind.)

Anthropologists and the ancient philosophers tell us that marriage developed historically as a natural, pre-political form of association. Aristotle, for instance, suggests in the Nicomachean Ethics that the “friendship between a husband and a wife seems to be in accord with nature.” Moreover, marriage is “earlier and more necessary than a city.” Put somewhat differently, procreation is an objective, metaphysical necessity of human survival. The fundamental question is, how will this necessity be promoted and achieved by men and women in a social context?

As a natural, pre-political institution, marriage arose in response to certain observably immutable facts of reality: 1) that men and women are sexually attracted to one another; 2) that sex between men and women sometimes creates new human beings; 3) that only women carry and bear children; and 4) that children are entirely dependent on adults for their survival and for their physical, intellectual, and moral maturation. These are necessary, absolute, and observable facts of reality—facts that are true about human nature regardless of what anyone feels, wants, prays, or chooses—facts that ground marriage in the requirements of human life.

Anthropologically, we know these immutable facts of human nature led to a series of persistent and pervasive social problems in all societies. Imagine a world before the rise of marriage, a world in which men and women engaged in indiscriminate (and often forced) sexual relations that often resulted in pregnancy and the bearing of children. In such a state, the central problem was this: men and women have sexual relations but only women get pregnant and bear children. This is what we mean by the sexual asymmetry between men and women. Women are biologically connected to children, and every time a child is born a mother is always present. These natural and sociological facts are, however, confronted by one massive counterfactual: fathers are not always present when children are born and raised. In other words, there is no similar biological necessity, however, connecting fathers to childbirth, and hence to babies and their mothers.

Every culture known to man has understood that a society of husbandless mothers and fatherless children is a formula for disaster. For instance, if men did not know that the child born to the woman with whom they’d had sexual relations was theirs, they would typically either abandon mother and child to fend for themselves or they would engage in potentially deadly competition with other men to claim their paternal rights and authority. Neither outcome was salutary for the immediate parties involved, nor for the larger community. Moreover, when men engaged in promiscuous sexual relations and impregnated more than one woman (as some were—and are—want to do), their economic resources were either centralized in one family and thereby impoverishing the others, or the resources were dispersed and diluted among several families. It also led to polygamous sexual relations, wherein dominant males would monopolize multiple women and leave male outcasts sexless and childless. Eventually, the sexual aristocracy would face an upheaval from the sexually impoverished, who would revolt and fight for their right to procreate. In other words, a society defined by non-marital, non-monogamous sexual relations often led to social disruption, anarchy, and barbarism.

These basic facts of human nature also lead inexorably to certain sociological facts: 1) that the well-being of mothers and their children is promoted by the presence of fathers; and 2) that raising children in stable family units promotes the interests of children and the perpetuation and wellbeing of society. The discovery, development, and institutionalization of marriage in all places around the world was therefore a response to the challenges and requirements of human life. Marriage attaches husbands to wives and fathers to their biological children in order to protect mothers and their children and to provide stability in society at large.

Marriage was and is therefore the universal solution to a series of ineradicable human problems. It was developed and institutionalized by freely associating individuals to 1) enable women to avoid becoming husbandless mothers of fatherless children; 2) tame and channel sexual jealousy; 3) pool, manage, and protect limited economic resources; 4) transfer property from one generation to another; and, 5) establish a safe and stable environment for men and women to create families and to raise and educate their children free of outside interference.

In promising monogamy, married couples make a commitment to each other (and to their community) that they would only have children with and through each other. The exclusivity of marriage insured that men would know who their biological children are to eliminate competing paternity claims and the social conflict that goes with them. The permanence of marriage protected the vulnerability of women during pregnancy and during the years in which they are rearing dependent children. As a social institution, exclusivity and permanence ensured that children were raised by their natural parents throughout their minority.

In sum, marriage is the institution that creates, orders, and protects family life primarily for the benefit of children. Without this primary purpose or final cause guiding what marriage is, two of its fundamental characteristics (i.e., exclusivity and permanence) would not be necessary (or at least they would be optional) and they might not even be desirable. In fact, if humans reproduced asexually, or if newborns and young children were somehow not dependent on adults for their survival, marriage would be an unnecessary institution, at least from the perspective of society and government.

Every civilization known to man has understood the need to recognize that human reproduction and its claims are an irreducible feature of the human experience. This is how and why I say that marriage is grounded in the metaphysical reality. Put slightly differently, marriage is the moral-socio-legal institution that recognizes and supports the metaphysical necessities of human life. It acknowledges and secures the relation between a child and a particular set of parents. It is the foundational pro-life institution that every society has recognized to secure a future for itself. No decent or free society has ever treated the question of who may properly call a child his or her own as optional or as a matter to be decided by government fiat. Unless a particular civilization has an explicit death-wish (e.g., the Jim Jones “Jonestown” commune in Guyana), every society known to man has recognized that its future is dependent on its ability to successfully organize a healthy marriage culture.

Marriage as a Socio-Moral Institution

As a socio-moral institution, marriage is different from all other human relationships. It is naturally ordered to procreation and to the rearing of children, and, as such, it is a natural extension of biological reality. Put differently, it attaches men and women to each other in a permanent legal bond and then to their children. That’s what the institution of marriage does; that’s what its forms and formalities do. Moreover, virtually every human society has discovered and instituted marriage as the most salutary and orderly way to create a future for itself. It is a life-serving institution. It is the only form of human association rooted in the self-preservation of the species. Were it not for this fact, marriage would be just another form of partnership or friendship. Marriage provides a moral and legal structure that serves as the primary building block for creating stable families, and thus it is the means by which society not only perpetuates itself but builds a truly civil society. Marital unions reflect and identify a basic and necessary truth about human life, providing an objective good to society in ways that other kinds of relationships could not. Marriage is, therefore, the necessary and foundational building block of any civil society.

Indeed, a strong marriage culture is a sine qua non of a free and decent society. Civilized societies depend on parents educating their children to become rational, self-governing, rights-respecting, virtuous, productive citizens, which in turn requires mothers and fathers to commit their lives to each other and to the education of their children. Marriage makes this possible. Parenting is a long, costly, difficult, and delicate process of ongoing care and supervision that requires a deep and abiding commitment of both parents. Biological mothers and fathers working as a team do this better than anyone. We all benefit—including free-riding unmarried individuals—from those who create, support, and educate children to sustain our civilization. Most people know incompetent and rotten parents, but we have not invented a better way to raise children. The alternatives (e.g., the government raising children) are considerably worse.

The argument for marriage may be summed up with this simple syllogism: Procreation is a necessary precondition for the existence and survival of human life; marriage is fundamental to responsible procreation and parenting; therefore, the existence and wellbeing of a civil society is dependent on marriage. Historically and cross-culturally, marriage is and has been the solution to one of mankind’s most vexing problems. It is therefore good not because it is traditional; it is traditional precisely because it is good. Marriage is good because it is true and serves human life.

This audio recording of “Metaphysical Marriage” is available to all subscribers of The Redneck Intellectual.

Have a great week!

THE GOOD

I WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE TO RECOMMEND THE NEW SUBSTACK JUST LAUNCHED BY MY GOOD FRIEND, ROGER KIMBALL. Roger is one of the best thinkers and writers of our time. Agree or disagree with some of his views, Rogers essays are always top-shelf:

LET’S GO! A researcher may have found a shortcut to Mars as NASA eyes red planet. Here’s what to know about the newly found possible shorter trajectory to Mars, and what it could mean ahead of future missions to Earth’s planetary neighbor.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY CAPITALISM:

IN MY EXPERIENCE, THIS IS TRUE, BUT THERE IS, OF COURSE, A THIRD OPTION THAT PROMISES EVEN GREATER HAPPINESS: Why are conservatives so much happier (and less neurotic) than liberals?

MUST READ. Good essay on a bad topic: Don’t Lose Your Nerve: Free Societies Facing Ideological Violence.

• Related: The Destructive Impulse of Liberalism: Where is ‘progress’ leading? And other questions you should never ask.

• Related: The bougie nihilism that is killing America

BECAUSE MODERN LIBERALISM IS GROUNDED IN HATE AND PERPETUAL HATRED IS PSYCHOLOGICALLY UNSUSTAINABLE: Why are conservatives so much happier (and less neurotic) than liberals?

MEDICINE/HEALTH ROUND UP

• ‘Weight loss’ drug helps heart regardless of amount of weight lost.

• ‘Earth-shattering’ discovery reveals why some 80-year-olds have superior memories

• Living tumor-on-a-chip exposes how cancers block immune attacks.

• New research from the University of Auckland’s Liggins Institute suggests that a capsule containing healthy gut bacteria could potentially change the future of obesity treatment.

• New research uncovers how the brain’s activity, energy use, and blood flow change as people fall asleep.

I’M NOT CONVINCED THAT IT’S TIME TO CELEBRATE, BUT WE’RE ON THE RIGHT ROAD: How the left ‘lost’ the DEI wars

• Related: Staffers at UNT, UT-Arlington ‘no longer employed’ after undercover videos detail DEI practices despite ban.

THE HARVEY C. MANSFIELD EDITION. Two new books this year at age 94. Looks to me like his career is about to take off:

• Harvard’s ‘Annoying Socratic Gadfly’ Takes a Victory Lap

• Harvey C. Mansfield’s honorable quest to educate Harvard

YOU CAN’T RESPECT MELEI ENOUGH! When Argentine President Javier Milei met with Pope Leo XIV, he gave him a copy of Friedrich Hayek’s 1988 book, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism. Let’s hope the Pope did his homework.

ARCHEOLOGY/ANTHROPOLOGY ROUND UP:

• Under the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Archeologists Found What Could Be the Tomb of Jesus.

• Archeologist thinks new tech could reveal where the Lost Ark is hidden at last.

• Archaeologists crack ‘Spanish Roanoke’ mystery with haunting find from doomed colony

• Archaeologists Found 115,000-Year-Old Human Footprints Where They Shouldn’t Be.

• Bronze and Iron Age Settlement Discovery in Georgia Rewrites Ancient History.

LEFT-WING CORRUPTION IS BOTTOMLESS: ‘MASSIVE!’ Feds indict SPLC for using donor money to pay white supremacists to stage ‘hate crimes’

POWER UP: Appalachia Lithium Cache Could Power U.S. for Centuries

THIS IS GOING TO GET INTERESTING:

• Alberta separatists say they have enough signatures to trigger independence referendum

• Oil-rich province could hold vote on leaving Canada as early as October

SCIENCE ROUND UP:

• The Genesis revitalizing U.S. scientific research

• 24,000-year-old zombie worm gets thawed, immediately starts reproducing.

• An Unknown State of Matter Could Be Hiding in Our Solar System.

• Physicists just found a tiny flaw in time itself.

• A tiny world beyond Neptune has an atmosphere that shouldn’t exist.

I DON’T THINK THIS IS QUITE RIGHT, BUT IT’S AN INTERESTING ENCAPSULATION OF A THEORY OF CIVILIZATIONAL DECLINE AND FALL. What do you think? Please leave a comment below.

I SURE HOPE SO: Is America on the Verge of a Nuclear Renaissance?

CLEANING UP THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH: Good gut bacteria may be the secret to longevity — how to get it, including the strain that boosts your natural GLP-1.

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THE BAD

THIS IS NOT A SOMALI THING; IT’S A WELFARE THING: DOJ says it has prosecuted $500 million in healthcare, COVID fraud claims in 3 states

STEP #1: STOP REPRODUCING. Step #2: Make up for Step #1 by inviting your enemies to do just the opposite. Step #3: die slowly: US Birthrate Hits Record Low In 2025

WHAT CAN’T GO ON FOREVER, WON’T: Queer advocacy group pauses $500 yoga allowances for immigrants in Boston

ALAS, I STRONGLY SUSPECT THIS IS TRUE: The scourge of left-wing violence isn’t new. It’s only going to get worse.

NO: Can Our Civilization Survive Its Betrayal By Elites?

CHINA WATCH:

• Mayor admits she secretly pushed Chinese propaganda at Beijing’s command: feds

CONSERVATIVES AND LIBERTARIANS NEED TO REDISCOVER THE IMMORALITY OF THE WELFARE STATE: Medicaid Millionaires: How The Feds Pay Immigrants Billions To Hang Out With Their Families

WHAT CAN’T GO ONE FOREVER, WON’T: U.S. deficit projected to hit $2 trillion, double fiscal target.

END THE WELFARE STATE: Ohio gov candidate Vivek Ramaswamy sounds alarm about Medicaid fraud — after 288 companies found registered to same address.

THE UGLY

I’M SPEECHLESS! This is worst piece of news that I’ve seen in years: 600 groups with $2B in revenue mobilize 3,000 May Day protests in a ‘red-blue’ alliance

WHAT DO YOU THINK WOULD BE THE APPROPRIATE RECKONING? There Must Be a Reckoning for Gender Transitioners Who Destroyed the Lives of Thousands of Children.

VERY SAD: I De-transitioned. My Body Will Never Be the Same.

NEXT LEVEL EVIL: Redefined evil’: New report reveals ‘almost unimaginable horrors’ by Hamas during Oct. 7 war against Israel

. . . and THE BEAUTIFUL

DON’T YOU JUST LOVE AMERICA! Route 163 Through Monument Valley in Arizona. I’ve done this drive. It’s fabulous. Highly recommended.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!!

**The audio recording of this essay is at the bottom and is reserved for paid subscribers.

“Married love between man and woman is bigger than oaths, guarded by right of nature.”—Aeschylus, The Furies (458 BC)

Marriage was once a topic of serious contemplation and conversation in the history of moral and political philosophy because it was thought to be the central social institution of civilization. Virtually all the ancient Greek and Roman moralists thought marriage an important topic to think and write about and early modern moral philosophers such as Montaigne, Bacon, Locke, Hume, and Rousseau likewise thought it a subject worthy of serious consideration. In fact, most philosophers examined marriage as a topic of serious philosophic investigation up through the end of nineteenth century.

By the twentieth century, however, marriage died an ignominious death as a subject worthy of serious philosophical contemplation, which may help to explain why it has suffered a mortal wound as a lived experience. Once wedding vows were reduced to the ritualized incantation of mere words and the institution of marriage relegated to the world of pop psychology, its standing as a topic of serious philosophic consideration was relegated to an afterthought. Eventually, by the post-WWII era, avant-garde “intellectuals” began to treat marriage as a quaint, non-essential relic of late-bourgeois society, and, at worst, as an authoritarian institution that oppressed women, children, and various sexual minorities.

The time has come to reconsider marriage as a topic of profound importance and consequence. Even though it is the most timeless and universal social institution known to man, its philosophic meaning has suffered from one very real problem: it was assumed that that which is virtually self-evident to all men and women everywhere, through all time, needs no explication or defense. This is the tragic flaw of marriage as a social institution: in a postmodern age that seeks to deconstruct and tear down virtually all moral, social, political, and economic institutions in order to rediscover what Marx called man’s “species-being,” an institution, the meaning of which formerly went without saying, was bound to be deconstructed sooner or later.

Fast forward to today.

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How to Think About Marriage

Ironically, the rise of the same-sex marriage movement in the late 1990s and early twenty-first century has spurred a renewed interest in both the theory and practice of marriage. In fact, a new front in America’s ongoing culture wars was opened around the marriage issue in the decade before the Windsor and Obergefell decisions, pitting the nation’s two dominant sectarian forces—religious conservatives and secular liberals—against one another in pitched battle.

Religious conservatives argue that marriage is commanded and ordered by God (see Genesis 1:27-28, 2:24). This view can be summed up in two words: “God said.” God’s law defines and guides the institution of marriage (e.g., “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder,” Matthew 19:4-6). The Christian ideal says that marriage is fixed and unchanging: it is the monogamous, exclusive, permanent union of a man and a woman whose one-flesh union mirrors in some way the nature of God himself. For traditionalists, the forms and formalities of marriage are intrinsic to God’s will. For proponents of this view, the very idea of same-sex relationships, never mind a same-sex marriage, is an abomination.

Secular liberals, by contrast, argue for a latitudinarian view of marriage, one that decouples marriage from any religious foundation. This “liberationist” or postmodern view of marriage rejects the traditional forms and formalities of marriage as representing an outdated, unenlightened, oppressive view of human flourishing. For secular liberals, marriage is inherently subjectivist in nature. It is grounded in feelings, wishes, and whims. Postmodern marriage is an inherently genderless institution based on the emotional needs of adults as they seek spiritual and sexual autonomy. And it too can be summed up in two words: “I want.” The liberationist view defines marriage simply as the companionship of two or more people based on a strong emotional commitment. Some postmodernists view traditional marriage, at least traditional heterosexual marriage, as something to destroy.

In my view, both sides of the marriage debate—the “God said” versus the “I want” positions—are mistaken. Marriage is neither intrinsic to God’s will, nor is it grounded in the subjective will of men. Both views are fundamentally disconnected from reality.

Methodologically, my approach is not based on religious claims or postmodern ideology, nor does it appeal to authority or whim. The traditional definition of marriage does come closer—much closer—to the truth of what marriage is relative to the postmodern view, but it does so for insufficient if not mistaken reasons. By contrast, my approach examines how and why marriage serves the requirements of human life. By elucidating and contrasting the metaphysical and postmodern views, I hope to transcend the superficial claims that have characterized the marriage debate of the last quarter century. Much hinges on the outcome of this national conversation, and so we must strive to get it right.

My purpose in this essay is to establish an approach to marriage that is objectively and demonstrably true (i.e., based on the requirements of human life), life-enhancing, and consistent with the moral and political principles of a free society. A view of marriage that is true (i.e., objective, certain, absolute, permanent, and universal) must be based on facts and data that have been available for all to see for millennia (i.e., the material of history, cultural artifacts, personal introspection, the observation of human nature, and vicarious experience).

In the essays to follow in this series, I present a rational view of marriage that is grounded in the facts of reality and that can be validated objectively and logically. I call it the metaphysical view of marriage. (I shall examine the metaphysical view of marriage in the next essay.) This secular, fact-based, rational approach begins by examining human nature and it does so by asking one simple question: why marriage?

By keeping this question center stage, we can see how and why a proper view of marriage is grounded in the immutable facts of reality. As a metaphysically grounded institution, marriage fulfills certain requirements of human life, which is why it would exist whether men were religious or not. Marriage is some thing (i.e., a certain kind of relationship) that is real and specific: it has a cause, a nature, a function, and a purpose that are grounded in the objective reality of human nature. Subsequent essays will contrast the metaphysical view of marriage with the postmodern view.

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The Curious Nature of Marriage

Before we go too far down the wedding aisle, it might be helpful to remind ourselves that what is often called “traditional” marriage is a curious, perplexing, and possibly even a bizarre institution.

Think about it this way: most men and women at a relatively young age will (often within a stone’s throw of puberty), amid countless members of the opposite sex from whom to choose, make a public vow to one person that they shall spend the rest of their lives together, loving and caring for each other exclusively. Two very different kinds of beings—the two great halves of humanity—are now united in a monogamous, sexually exclusive, and permanent relationship that is often fraught with mystery, uncertainty, adventure, joy, disappointment, longing, heartbreak, tedium, and peril.

How strange is that? Why limit yourself to just one person at such a young age? Why commit yourself forever? What’s the sense in that? And getting married is the easy part! It is the staying married part that’s hard.

The eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher David Hume actually thought marriage was an inherently “dangerous” enterprise, which is maybe why he never tied the knot. Consider what marriage does. “Nothing,” noted Hume, “is more dangerous than to unite two persons so closely in all their interests and concerns, as man and wife, without rendering the union entire and total. The least possibility of a separate interest must be the source of endless quarrels and suspicions. The wife, not secure of her establishment, will still be driving some separate end or project; and the husband’s selfishness, being accompanied with more power, may be still more dangerous.” Or, as House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, once put it, “Why would you get married? Why would anybody get married?”

Pelosi’s question is not unreasonable, particularly given the divorce rate in the United States today, which stands at approximately forty-five percent. J. Paul Getty, one of America’s great twentieth-century industrialists and a man who was married five times, captured some of the mystery and irony that is marriage when he said, “I would gladly give all of my millions for just one lasting marital success.” Getty’s lament points to both the enduring desirability and difficulty of marriage, thus raising the question: is marriage rational?

Consider the moral meaning of that precise moment when a marriage is created. The publicly uttered wedding vows of a groom to his bride (reciprocated by the bride to her groom) typically go something like this:

“I, _Name_, take you, _N_, / to be my wife, / to have and to hold / from this day forward; / for better, for worse, / for richer, for poorer, / in sickness and in health, / to love and to cherish, / till death us do part.

With these forty-one words, the lives of two people change radically and forever. The decision of a man and a woman to marry is a life-altering moment in the lives of two different people, a choice that requires a good deal of wisdom about oneself and the other person—a very rare kind of wisdom, indeed.

But the fact that a man and a woman love each other above all others when they are 25 does not guarantee that they can or will love each other when they are 35, 55, or 75. Love is a complex thing. To be in love, which is to receive something, is not the same thing as to love, which is to give something. Marriage is a delicate balance between receiving and giving over a long period of time.

The practical challenge of marriage, however, is that individual men and women change over time; they change physically, psychologically, and emotionally, all of which means their needs and expectations change. Over the course of even just five or ten years, a wife may gain excessive weight and several chins, or a husband may go bald and develop a beer belly. One spouse becomes less attractive to the other or both to each other. With the inevitable physical changes that men and women experience will sometimes come psychological and emotional changes. One spouse may lose self-confidence whilst the other gains in self-confidence, and with those changes one partner becomes more or less interested in sexual relations with their spouse. Physical attraction changes over time. Rarely does it become stronger.

Often the material and spiritual values between married couples change as well, not to mention their moral, social, and political principles. What happens to a married couple where the husband becomes a radical vegan, and the wife becomes a devotee of the so-called “paleo” diet? What happens to a married couple when the husband wants to spend more and more money on cars and vacations and the wife wants to give more and more money to African charities? What happens when couples learn that they don’t share the same moral, social, and political values on topics such as welfare, abortion, drugs, sex, and pronouns? What happens if the wife is a Republican and the husband a Democrat? What if one becomes an atheist and the other is a devout Christian? What if one spouse supports transgenderism and the other doesn’t? And then, of course, there are the micro and macro differences that husbands and wives experience and face every day as they raise children.

If most people can’t know with certainty who or what they will become in the future, how can they expect to know who or what another human being will become 20 years in the future? And even if the particular individuals did not change one iota, the fact remains that relationships can and do change because our knowledge of the other person can never be absolute and because the relationship itself changes the people in it.

The romance and mystery with which marriage typically begins almost always ends in a very different place. At the beginning of marriage, husbands and wives may be described in their relationship to each other as “strangers in a strange land.” New love is a foreign place, and its mystery is exciting and dangerous. With time, however, marriage for many couples becomes familiar, dull, commonplace, and then, for all too many, it ends with crushing boredom and bitter resentment.

The biting sarcasm of H. L. Menken is not too far off the mark in describing the unromantic nature of many marriages. Speaking of husbands and wives in marriage, Mencken captured the enervating inertia of marriage: “By and by all the mystery of the relation is gone, and they stand in the unsexed position of brother and sister. Thus that ‘maximum of temptation’ of which Shaw speaks has within itself the seeds of its own decay. A husband begins by kissing a pretty girl, his wife; it is pleasant to have her so handy and so willing. He ends by making Machiavellian efforts to avoid kissing the every day sharer of his meals, books, bath towels, pocketbook, relatives, ambitions, secrets, malaises and business: a proceeding about as romantic as having his boots blacked. The thing is too horribly dismal for words.”

And of course, Mencken no doubt understood that the dismal art of marriage cuts two ways, not just one. I shudder to think what sharp-tongued female wits might say about their husbands. The Machiavellian lengths to which many women will go to avoid intimacy with their husbands is one of the principal causes of divorce. At the end of marriage, husbands and wives may once again be described in their relationship to each other as “strangers in a strange land” but for reasons entirely different than when they began their marriage.

On top of all the changes that define marriage, very few people get married in a vacuum. When a man marries a woman, he will almost always marry into her family. Brides typically come with mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters as well as an extended family of grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces, and vice versa. Most grooms in addition to becoming husbands also become a son-in-law and a brother-in-law. Most people who marry, marry into an extended and complex web of family relations, each with its own history, challenges, and problems. Each one of these relationships has the potential to affect the relationship of husband and wife. Not a few marriages have crashed on the rocky shoals of in-laws.

With time, husbands and wives also typically become mothers and fathers to a child or several children, and then, together, they become seen as parents to the outside world. Babies change everything. What was knowable or predictable in the relationship between husbands and wives now becomes unknowable and unpredictable in their relationship as parents. Children often bring to the surface the sometimes differing values and principles of their parents that were left submerged or hidden before the birth of a child. Parents are required to rear and educate their children on everything from table manners and fashion to friendship and sexual morality. To expect husbands and wives to agree on virtually all the choices and actions they must take on behalf of their children is to expect what never was nor ever will be.

For better or worse, marriage is usually a package deal of multifaceted, multi-layered relationships, and these relationships can change who we are. Change, complexity, and confusion are therefore endemic to marriage. Some marriages get better over time, and some get worse. Tragically, then, many people experience marriage as a form of cruel and unusual punishment and, in the worst cases, as an emotional death sentence. Nietzsche tells us with some apparent truth “There is bitterness in the cup of even the best love.”

That men and women would commit themselves to marriage is therefore quite a remarkable thing. Human beings are fallible and they are not omniscient, and yet they make a decision that will affect them in the most comprehensive and profound ways for the rest of their lives. It turns out that forever—till death us do part—is a really long time. In today’s world, a marriage may last a good fifty, sixty, or even seventy years.

Living with the same person under the same roof day after day for years and then for decades almost always leads to marriages—including the very best—that experience periods of frustration, indifference, disillusionment, anger, pain, and resentment. Most marriages go through trials and tribulations that would wreck most other relationships. Friendships do not end in murder-suicides, for instance, but, tragically, some marriages do. Add children to the mix and the challenges of marriage are compounded in untold ways. It is an inherently fragile institution that has the potential to hurt and wound not only the married couple but also any children it may produce when it all goes wrong. The same is usually not true for friendships. This is why marriage is ultimately about more than just two people, and this is why we all have a vested interest in the nature and meaning of marriage as an institution.

In the light of all this, marriage is simultaneously the most curious—or bizarre—of all human institutions, and yet it is the most important, the most needed, the most beautiful, and possibly even the most natural of all human institutions.

So, let us go forward by asking two basic questions: What is marriage, and why do men and women need it?

Have a great day!

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***You can expect another marriage essay in one week.

DUMB & DUMBER (NO. 133)

K-12 EDITION

BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT YOUR CHILDREN ANYMORE AND EDUCATION ISN’T THE GOAL: Instead Of Reading And Math, Teachers Are Grading Kids On Personality And Emotions

THE MIND CONTROLLERS ARE LOSING THEIR GRIP ON REALITY: Will Johnny ever learn to read? Pushback against science of reading mandates

TITLE CORRECTION: GOVERNMENT SCHOOL TEST SCORES CONTINUE TO DECLINE OVER THE COURSE OF THE LAST 50 YEARS: Public School Test Scores Continue To Decline Since Pandemic

ETERNAL VIGILANCE: Reasons to keep an eye on the activists in schools.

IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES (e.g., bridges falling, planes dropping out of the sky, etc.): Woke Mathematics in Education- Part 1. While the last few years have witnessed growing “fatigue” regarding woke and DEI policies, they are still prominent fixtures in our society, especially (and unfortunately) in our STEM fields.

DEMOGRAPHY IS DESTINY: THE COLLAPSE IS COMING FASTER THAN YOU THINK, AND IT’S ALL SELF-INFLICTED:

UH-OH: Leaked docs put nation’s largest teachers’ union in hot seat from top watchdog

HIGHER ED EDITION

AN ARRESTING TITLE BUT ON TARGET: Defund The Education Institutions Churning Out Left-Wing Assassins

CAUSE: San Francisco Reinstates 8th-Grade Algebra After ‘Equity’ Experiment Fails. EFFECT: Colleges drop remedial math, students drop math courses.

WHAT CAN’T GO ON FOREVER, WON’T: Americans waking up to reality around college.

NOW IS THE TIME TO INVEST IN BLUE BOOKS BECAUSE THE BLUE BOOK EXAM IS BACK: AI Will Destroy Universities

WORST FINANCIAL DECISION OF MY LIFE WAS TO NOT HAVE INVESTED IN THE COMPANIES THAT MAKE BLUE BOOKS: Colleges Bring Back Blue-Book Tests To Fight AI Cheating, But There’s A Hitch

NO! Next Question: Can Universities Be Reformed?

IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES: ANALYSIS: ‘Death to America’ chants echo across campuses due to Iranian influence and radical professors.

MORE FREE ADVERTISING FOR HOMESCHOOLING: SICK, EVIL MONSTERS’: Principal who celebrated Charlie Kirk assassination gets busted for child porn, now learns fate

PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION EDITION

BUT NOT MUCH ELSE: Nursing schools finally can cure the DEI disease

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DUMB & DUMBER (NO. 134)

K-12 EDITION

THAT BAD PEOPLE WANT TO HURT OUR CHILDREN IS NOT SURPRISING. What is surprising is that the government schools are ok with it: ‘Gaining steam’: Terror ‘front group’ accused of strong-arming U.S. schools into promoting Islam

THERE WILL BE LAWSUITS—PROMISE: NY School District Secretly Promoted Medical Gender Transitions For 8th Graders

TOTALLY NORMAL: FIRED! Kindergarten teacher terrified kids with his fetish persona as a wolf

GOOD NEWS, BUT NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Zero is the number we’re looking for: The Education Department Is Shrinking

WHY IS IT ALMOST ALWAYS FEMALE TEACHERS? Former Teacher Of The Year Finalist Gets 14 Years For Sexually Exploiting A Student

UMM . . . PRETTY SURE THE ANSWER IS THE METHOD BY WHICH CHILDREN ARE TAUGHT HOW NOT TO READ VIA THE “WHOLE WORD” APPROACH TAUGHT IN THE SO-CALLED “ED” SCHOOLS: Why Johnny Can’t Read.

HIGHER ED EDITION

YOU’D THINK A FEW PROFESSORS AT PENN MIGHT DO THAT, BUT NO . . . : Pennsylvania lawmaker calls for mandated course for students on ‘dangers and realities’ of Marxism.

AND THE ARGUMENT IN DEFENSE OF THE PROFESSOR WOULD BE . . . WHAT? Please enlighten us. What do you think? Is College Making People Stupider?

CORNELL IS IN BIG TROUBLE: Biologist accuses Cornell of ‘egregious’ discrimination against white men in lawsuit.

SAYING THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD. This has been the goal of the Left for the last 75 years+: Villanova U. Prof Says Academia Should be Used as a ‘Trojan Horse’ for Socialism

ANALYSIS TRUE: Intersectionality is an “intellectual foundation for violence, terrorism, antisemitism, and anti-westernism”

PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION EDITION

IF SOCIALISM ALWAYS FAILS, THEN WHY DOES IT NEVER DIE? Law Schools Are Training Next Generation Of Immigration Activists

*Have a great week.

And if you’re looking for something to read . . .

My newest book (and there is a second volume to go with it) . . .

My best book . . .

My first book . . .

My most controversial book . . .

My most personal book . . .

***This is the first essay in a series on the nature, purposes, meaning, and consequences of marriage. I can think of no topic more important than that of marriage. The series will last as long as I’ve said what I need to say.

I have no doubt that both religious conservatives and secular Progressives will find things to dislike throughout the series. That’s ok. Please feel free to leave comments in support of or against my claims. If you disagree, prove me wrong and make a better argument. I’m open to persuasion.

This first essay is merely introductory, while succeeding essays will drill down more deeply into the marriage question.

The audio recording of this essay is available at the bottom.

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“It is a good thing when a man and woman choose to live together as husband and wife. It is a joy to their friends, a warning to their enemies, but only they know the true meaning of it.”—Homer, The Odyssey

The Western world is experiencing an unprecedented change in how it views the nature and meaning of marriage. Fewer people today are getting married, and almost forty-five percent of those who do end their marriage in divorce. More importantly, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5-4 in its 2013 landmark decision, U.S. v. Windsor, that certain provisions of the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act were unconstitutional, thereby opening the door to nationalizing same-sex marriage (SSM), which of course is precisely what happened two years later in the Supreme Court’s Obergefell vs. Hodges decision.

The Court’s 5-4 decision in Obergefell ruled that the 14^th Amendment’s Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses require all states to license marriages between two people of the same sex and to recognize same-sex marriages lawfully performed in other states. Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion held that the fundamental right to marry is inherent in individual liberty and applies equally to same-sex couples, as there is no fundamental difference between same-sex and opposite-sex unions with respect to the principles of love and companionship. In a nanosecond, an almost 5,000-year-old, legally-recognized institution was changed radically.

The Windsor and Obergefell decisions represent a major event in the life of the nation not dissimilar to the 1857 Dred Scott decision. (I am not suggesting that these two very different institutions are the same morally.) Chief Justice Taney’s opinion in that infamous case expanded the meaning of property to include slaves, thereby laying the groundwork for the nationalization of slavery. Similarly, Kennedy’s opinion in Obergefell expanded the definition of marriage to include same-sex unions, thereby nationalizing same-sex marriage. In both cases, the majority opinions were subject to powerful dissents, which in turn reflected the views of a divided public. All parties to the Windsor and Obergefell cases recognize that the court’s two-pronged decision goes to the heart of our society’s most fundamental values and principles.

Regardless of what the Supreme Court says or what the cultural consensus is at any given moment, serious philosophic questions about monumental questions never go away. And few questions are more important than the question of marriage. In fact, I’m not sure that I can think of a more fundamental and consequential moral question. Consider, for instance, one of the critical functions served by a wedding, which is to encourage those in attendance and witnessing the union to reflect upon the nature, meaning, and beauty of marriage.

Still, as a culture, a nation, and even as a civilization, I do not think that we reflect often or deeply enough about the nature and meaning of marriage. Certainly the older I get and the longer married I am, the more I feel drawn to think about marriage. It took a long time (maybe longer than it should have), but I think I’m only just now beginning to see the monumental importance of marriage not just for my life but for civilization.

How, then, should we view marriage in the twenty-first century? Have we transcended the traditional and outdated understanding of marriage and reached some bold new and higher meaning of marriage?

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The New World of Marriage

For several thousand years of human history, the idea of same-sex marriage had less reality than the idea of unicorns. It was simply beyond the pale of what wise men and women in every culture considered in accord with the nature and purposes of marriage. In the blink of an eye, all that changed. A moral and cultural Tsunami—one that is sweeping aside customary social norms and legal precedents that have existed for millennia—is now washing over America with breathtaking speed.

Both sides of the marriage issue understand that altering the institution of marriage will have profound consequences for the kind of society we live in. This Brave New World will affect the kinds of relationships we have as adults, and it will certainly affect how we understand the nature of the family and the raising of children. To discuss the nature of marriage is therefore to discuss the nature of the family, which in turn is to discuss the nature of society.

To fully appreciate the intellectual, psychological, cultural, and political revolution that has taken place in the last quarter century, let’s consider some basic historical and sociological facts. Up through the late 1990s, only a handful of obscure intellectuals were even talking about same-sex marriage. Even by the early 2000s, the idea of same-sex marriage was incomprehensible for most Americans. As late as 2008, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both publicly opposed same-sex marriage. Today, that view is equated with Jim Crow segregation.

Even more remarkably, this massive cultural upheaval has taken place with virtually no serious public discussion, no serious intellectual engagement, and no serious thought about the profound effects it will have on our individual and cultural self-understanding. How do we account for this enormous sea change in public opinion over the course of the last twenty years or so?

This much is certain: the proponents of same-sex marriage were enormously successful in raising vast sums of money to advance their cause culturally and politically, methodically relentless in their grassroots organization and marketing, tireless in pushing their message through the print and electronic media, Hollywood and the music industry, and utterly ruthless in propagandizing the universities and America’s schools K-12. In short, we’ve witnessed nothing less than an intellectual blitzkrieg, a program of cultural “Shock and Awe” over the course of the last two decades that has left many dazed and confused.

And so, what seemed unthinkable within the memory of most adults is now a legal and cultural fact. Ask a typical college student today if he or she supports same-sex marriage and the answer is an incredulous “well, of course.” It is a complete non-issue for many of today’s young people. It is not a subject about which they must do any heavy mental lifting. The justice of “marriage equality” is a truth self-evident to Millennials and Gen Z requiring no reasoned defense. In fact, to even question the propriety or wisdom of same-sex marriage is now beyond the pale of civil discourse or social decency. Young people feel no real need to think seriously and deeply about the profound effects that redefining marriage will have for our self-understanding, and they seem disinterested in reflecting upon the far-reaching practical implications that same-sex marriage will have for our society.

We now live in a curious world where otherwise relatively uneducated and thoughtless teenagers and twenty-somethings have reached a new stage of post-Hegelian enlightenment, a state of higher consciousness unavailable to their reactionary and unenlightened parents and teachers, who are now thought to be out of step with the times. Publicly announcing one’s opposition to same-sex marriage on an American college campus today is almost akin to announcing that one is a Christian or an atheist on a street corner in Mecca. Observing the disdainful and hectoring attitudes of our young people today reminds one of the child revolutionaries in Roland Joffé’s 1984 film The Killing Fields, who lecture their much wiser elders in reeducation camps on the historical inevitability of The Revolution.

How did America’s young people, who seem to know so little about anything else, come to have such enlightenment? What is the source of this newfound wisdom? It would seem that the long arc of History has already declared as predestined tomorrow’s winner and losers. Who needs Xenophon, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, or Locke on marriage when you have “Will and Grace” and the “Modern Family” (aka the TV shows) on your side?

America’s rapidly changing demographics on the marriage question do not, however, tell the whole story. More ominously, American society today is now divided between the enlightened few and the unenlightened many. On one side stands reason, morality, freedom, equality, progress, compassion, decency, and love, and on the other side stands nothing but the forces of superstitious irrationalism, reactionary stupidity, Troglodytish bigotry, and segregationist oppression. To support the institution of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is now seen by many as illiberal, which means bad. It is the Forces of Light set against the Forces of Darkness. This Manichean world is now divided into binary categories of Us and Them, Friends and Enemies, Saints and Sinners, Believers and Infidels, all of which can be reduced to “The Good” and “The Evil.” The unwashed masses that stand for traditional marriage are said to suffer from a new kind of mental illness: homophobia.

Not surprisingly, many conservatives and libertarians have either waved the white flag of surrender, or they have begun calling for a brokered truce on the marriage issue before any real intellectual engagement has taken place. But a truce was never an option for the proponents of same-sex marriage. Nary a shot was fired in the cultural battle over same-sex marriage before the Nervous Nellies of the Right vacated the intellectual battlefield and began their fast retreat. This would suggest that they quickly realized they had been wrong on the marriage issue, that they are intellectual cowards, or compromising pragmatists.

Thus, it was only a matter of time before Ross Douthat, the lone “conservative” columnist at The New York Times and a supporter of traditional marriage, waved the white flag asking in a whimpering op-ed for “The Terms of Our Surrender.” Douthat conceded unconditional defeat on the marriage issue and expressed his hope that the conquering forces would treat him and his friends humanely.

Make no mistake about it: this is a cultural revolution the likes of which has never been seen before.

Still, for the tens of millions of unenlightened Americans stuck in the here-and-now, the question of marriage is a living and not a settled issue. It is not going away anytime soon. In fact, we may very well be witnessing the beginning and not the end of the marriage debate. Thoughtful Americans on both sides of the issue are right to wonder about the true meaning and long-term consequences of redefining marriage politically. The form in which this conversation takes place will be a test of who we are as a nation.

We do well, then, to recall Abraham Lincoln’s prescient words as he contemplated the impending crisis haunting the United States in the late 1850s: “If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending,” he said, “we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.” These are wise words for our present discontents. It is imperative that we understand “where we are, and whither we are tending” on the marriage question. Thoughtful Americans will no doubt disagree with one another on this controversial topic, which is why we must demand nothing less than a rational, serious, frank, and high-minded conversation. While it is still permissible to think and talk about the nature and meaning of marriage and family, let us do so in the spirit of genuine philosophic investigation.

To that end, I plan to offer a (longish) series of essays on three general topics: 1) the nature and meaning of marriage; 2) the role played by marriage in society; and, 3) the relationship between marriage and government in a free society. I will publish several essays under each of these broad topics.

The first general area examines two competing theories of marriage: what I call the metaphysical and the postmodern. These essays ask the following questions. What is the origin, purpose, and structure of marriage? Is it grounded in objective reality, or is it an infinitely flexible social construction? If it is grounded in objective reality, what are the facts that give rise to it? If it is a social construction, can its purposes and characteristics be remade at will?

The second general area examines the two best arguments for same-sex marriage: first, that homosexuals deserve the same right to marry as do heterosexuals; and second, that same-sex marriages will not diminish opposite-sex marriages.

The third general area examined in this series investigates the relationship between marriage and government in a free society. More particularly, I shall ask two questions: first, what is the proper role of government in marriage, and second, will laws supporting same-sex marriage expand or contract government and the sphere of freedom in America?

In the end, all of us should examine, philosophically, the nature and meaning of marriage and its relationship to the principles and practices of a free society. We must examine the presuppositions of the metaphysical and postmodern views of marriage and then explore the practical implications and consequences of both views. The manner in which we define marriage will have real consequences for how we think about the structure and wellbeing of families, how we think about the nature and meaning of motherhood and fatherhood, and, most importantly, it will affect how we think about the rearing and education of children. Surely these are topics worthy of the deepest philosophic consideration.

Ultimately, the way we view marriage will profoundly affect how we view the kind of society we are and want to be. In many ways, the marriage question, philosophically understood, cuts to the core of the human condition. To ask what marriage is, or should be, is one of the most important and fundamental human questions. It speaks to who and what we are as humans.

The time has come for Americans to renew their interest in the marriage question. As we go forward, let us pursue the truth about marriage in the spirit of rigorous and honest analysis.

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***Note to readers: I’ve been doing a lot of traveling recently and writing commissioned essays, all of which has slowed down my Substack writing rather significantly in the last couple of months. I do hope to get back into the writing saddle this weekend as Mrs. Redneck is heading out of town to see some of the grandkids. The goal is to start my long promised series of essays on marriage next week. I’m using these essays to try and figure out what marriage is, why it matters, what its consequences are for individuals and society, what its relationship is to the government of a free society, and many other important questions. Some of you will no doubt be upset by some of my arguments. Please feel free to disagree and offer better arguments in the comments section. I should also let you know that I may be putting parts of some essays behind the paywall with the hope that you’ll be motivated to think my work is worthy of support.

THE GOOD

PLEASE WATCH THIS WONDERFUL INTERVIEW WITH MY FORMER TEACHER, WHO ALSO HAPPENS TO BE THE GREATEST SCHOLAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION:

SIMPLY OUTSTANDING! The United States of America needs more Milei and a lot less of everything that we have right now: Davos 2026: Special address by Javier Milei, President of Argentina

SUPREME COURT JUST CLARENCE THOMAS ON PROGRESSIVISM’S ANTI-AMERICANISM:

• Related: Why Is Progressivism Incompatible With the Declaration of Independence? Clarence Thomas Explains

MORE PLEASE: Life Expectancy In US Hits Record High Of 79 Years In 2024, CDC Says

IF THIS FAILS, WE SHOULD JUST STOP PRETENDING AND ESTABLISH A WELFARE STATE FOR THE WHOLE WORLD, WHICH WE’RE PARTIALLY DOING ALREADY: Sen Rand Paul Introduces Bill To Halt Welfare Payments To Non-Citizens

I’M SORRY THIS HAPPENED TO HER, BUT PLEASED THAT SHE WON THIS LAWSUIT. My only disappointment is that she didn’t win a much higher award: Jury Awards Detransitioner $2 Million In Historic Medical-Malpractice Lawsuit:

WE LIKE OLIVE OIL: Extra Virgin Olive Oil Linked to Better Brain Function.

MEDICINE/HEALTH ROUND UP

• Engineered stem cells yield millions of tumor-fighting natural killer cells at reduced cost.

• Scientists Extend Lifespan by over 70% in Elderly Male Mice with New Treatment.

• Researchers Discover the Cell’s Secret Anti-Aging Mechanism.

• A Common Pain Relief Drug May Have Anti-Cancer Properties.

• Parkinson’s Discovery Suggests We May Have an FDA-Approved Treatment Already.

NICE: Report Finds More Low- And Middle-Income Americans Are Investing

IS MANLINESS TRENDY AGAIN? Not so toxic: Masculinity’s comeback makes America thrive.

GEE, I’M PERSUADED. Communism sounds really cool: The warmth of the collective.

ARCHEOLOGY/ANTHROPOLOGY UPDATE:

• New Dinosaur Species Discovered In Sahara Desert

• Earliest known writing dates back over 40,000 years.

• Humans invented writing to track debts. The world’s first writing system, cuneiform, emerged in Mesopotamia around 3200 BC to record who owed what to whom. Clay tokens for accounting date back as far as 8000 BC. Debt isn’t some corruption of a golden age. It’s so fundamental to human cooperation that we created literacy because of it.

• Hidden Crotch Detail Solves a 500-Year-Old Leonardo Da Vinci Mystery.

• A 5,500-Year-Old Skeleton Reveals the Deep Origins of Syphilis.

THE RETURN OF SANITY: As Lawsuits Grow, Transgender Detransition Movement Builds Momentum

INTERESTING QUESTION (AND I DON’T KNOW THE ANSWER TO IT): Courts To Decide Whether Founders Intended To Count Illegal Aliens In Census

YOU DON’T SAY: Anti-DEI medical group debunks study claiming black patients benefit from black doctors.

DOUBLE BONUS: Viagra Linked to Much Lower Risk of Death in Men, But Questions Remain.

IT’S FALSE TO CLAIM THE WELFARE STATE WAS BUILT WITH GOOD INTENTIONS. It was built to satisfy the guilt and envy of upper-middle-class “progressives”: Millions may be falsely enrolled in ObamaCare.

BRAVE OR STUPID? The True Story of a Tornado Scientist Who Got Trapped Inside One.

HOW ‘BOUT MORE, MORE, AND MORE: Trump Ends Obama Climate Regulations and Finalizes Massive Deregulation.

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THE BAD

THUS IT HAS EVER BEEN: Iran’s Greatest Ally Is the Left.

WHAT SAY WE JUST LEAVE THOSE LITTLE BUGGERS WHERE THEY ARE: Scientists Warn: 5,000-Year-Old Ice Cave Bacteria Resistant to Modern Antibiotics.

YES: Was Climate Change the Greatest Financial Scandal in History?

WIND AND SOLAR ENERGY HAS BEEN A DISASTER FOR THE WEST. We need more nuclear and a lot more real fast.

WELFARE STATE UPDATE:

• States spent welfare cash in ‘crazy ways’

• California Has Lost $180 Billion To Fraud, According To Experts

HEY REPUBLICANS: NOTHING TO SEE HERE . . . MOVE ALONG: It’s True: Gavin Newsom’s California Government Has Paid Protestors Over $100 Million.

SOCIALISM NEVER WORKS, NOT TO MENTION THAT IT’S IMMORAL: Nordic Countries Are Not Socialist Paradises: Most of the descendants of Scandinavian immigrants to America in the 19th century are more successful than their cousins in Scandinavia, which suggests that the latters’ welfare policies have impeded the growth of economy.

OH CANADA:

• Canada Considering Door-To-Door Gun Confiscation Program

• Canada’s Suicide Culture Is Devolving Into an Assisted Suicide Death Machine.

• Woman waits over 12 hours in emergency room amid Canada healthcare crisis

AND YOUR FIRST CLUE WAS . . . : Pathological narcissists have taken over the political left.

AT WHAT POINT DO WE SAY “ENOUGH”? Is ‘White Supremacy’ Causing an ‘Epidemic’ of Transgender Murders?

FEMINISM IS DEAD: Outraged by grooming gangs? You’re an extremist.

(NOT) GREAT BRITAIN WATCH:

• The Humiliation of Great Britain Is Complete

CHINA WATCH:

• Xi Jinping Carries Out Record-Breaking Punishments In CCP Amid General Purge

• China Is Starting to Pull Ahead of US in AI Race.

GEE, I WONDER HOW THAT HAPPENED? Americans believe in founding principles, but not sure we’re living up to them

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THE UGLY

DECLINE AND FALL:

NO KIDDING, SHERLOCK: Finnish Study Links Transgender Procedures to Decline in Youth Mental Health

THE TRANS-LEFT HAS ALL THE MONEY: THE HIGHER ED DEEP STATE: How the Mellon Foundation Funds Trans Ideology

. . . and THE BEAUTIFUL

THE PAIN OF IMPENDING LOSS CAPTURED IN MUSIC. I find this hauntingly beautiful piece of music by Tristan Barton, an Australian composer, deeply moving. It makes me think of the moment when a man wakes up in the early morning on the day he knows he will die. The opening evokes a sense of confusion that quickly turns into the painful realization that brings a dying man into full consciousness and the knowledge that that today is the last day.

***Enjoy the rest of your week!

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DUMB & DUMBER (NO. 131)

K-12 EDITION

FEMALE TEACHERS IN THE GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS HAVING SEX WITH THEIR STUDENTS IS MORE THAN A TREND; IT’S AN EPIDEMIC: High school teacher arrested after alleged sex with student living under her roof

WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING? School secretary, 31, accused of having sex with two students after husband catches her with one of them.

HE LOOKS LIKE A JUNIOR LEAGUE DOPE DEALER: California middle school assistant principal nabbed in child sex sting.

BEST TO HOMESCHOOL OR LEAVE CALIFORNIA: ‘Epidemic of Sexual Abuse’ in California Schools, Attorney Claims.

SERIOUSLY, WHAT’S WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? NY Teacher Suspended After Helping Students Form Turning Point Club

PRETTY SURE THE ANSWER IS THE METHOD BY WHICH CHILDREN ARE TAUGHT HOW NOT TO READ VIA THE SO-CALLED “WHOLE WORD” APPROACH: Why Johnny Can’t Read.

AND THE MONEY IS SPENT ON WHAT? Time to end the taxpayer part: Taxpayer-Funded Teacher Unions Receive $390 Million In Dues

IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT FOR YOUR CHILDREN? ‘Mommy, I’m scared he’s going to come eat me!’ Trans teacher demands kids take part in his wolf-like fantasies

HIGHER ED EDITION

SAYING THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD. This has been the goal of the Left for the last 75+ years: Villanova U. Prof Says Academia Should be Used as a ‘Trojan Horse’ for Socialism

TEXAS IS THE CANARY IN THE COAL MINE: Texas State University lets socialist club run amok, but cracks down on conservatives.

I’M SHOCKED! I didn’t think it would be that high! Only 1.7% Of Stanford Faculty Donations Go To Republicans In Midterms

ANALYSIS TRUE: Intersectionality is an “intellectual foundation for violence, terrorism, antisemitism, and anti-westernism”

THE LONG MARCH THROUGH THE INSTITUTIONS: Cold Civil War: Many College Students No Longer See the Rule of Law as a Restraint.

IT WAS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME: College promotes men’s cuddling group to ‘redefine masculinity.’

AMERICA’S UNIVERSITIES ARE MOVING TOWARD BECOMING ALL-WOMEN’S COLLEGES. Why should young men go to college only to be told that they’re the cause of the world’s problems? Better to become a plumber. There will, however, be long-term unintended consequences, and the women going to college may not like those consequences:

• What’s Missing on Campus? Men.

• The Missing Men of UNC

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DUMB & DUMBER (NO. 132)

K-12 EDITION

HOMESCHOOL: Calif. Teacher Of The Year Finalist Busted For Trying To Buy Sex From 13YO Boy

THE REVOLUTION IS HERE: Government school teachers are homeschooling their own children. See the X video here.

THE ABILITY TO WRITE IN CURSIVE—FOR BLUE BOOK EXAMS—WILL BECOME MORE IMPORTANT GOING FORWARD BECAUSE AI HAS MADE ESSAY WRITING SERIOUSLY PROBLEMATIC: The Case for Cursive

LET THE GRAMMAR WARS BEGIN: THE ENDLESS WAR ON GRAMMAR

NO OPTION NOW BUT TO HOMESCHOOL: Judge rules father cannot opt son out of kindergarten lessons on gender stereotypes

THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN FROM SEXUAL EXPLOITERS: TIME TO HOMESCHOOL: Assistant principal among 11 arrested in child exploitation task force operation, police say

FIGHT THE POWER: Wisconsin Parents, Students Rail Against Allowing Boys In Girls’ Bathrooms

HIGHER ED EDITION

IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES: Academia should burn.

YES, THERE WAS A TIME BEFORE HARARD BECAME A CLOWN SHOW, BUT THAT WAS A LONG TIME AGO (E.G., IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LAST CENTURY): Harvard ‘ecofascism’ professor also taught course on ‘aquatic, atmospheric life of Blackness.’

THE LONG MARCH THROUGH THE INSTITUTIONS. You know you’re winning when you can capture Utah: Marxist ideologies found in University of Utah’s economics department.

FOR THE 200^TH TIME: HARVARD IS A CLOWN SHOW: Harvard Students Earn Course Credit Helping Asylum Seekers

GOOD IDEA: Stop Meeting Students Where They Are

YUP. Believe it: Penn State Forces Faculty To Become DEI Zealots To Get Promoted, Lawsuit Claims

OF COURSE THEY DO: Chinese Academics Who Attended Chinese Military-Run Schools Work At US Colleges

THERE SEEMS TO BE A LOT OF DISCRIMINATION GOING ON AT UC BERKELEY THESE DAY: Five Racially Discriminatory Programs at UC Berkeley Challenged by Equal Protection Project

THAT WOULD BE THE QUESTION: What Are Foreign Governments Buying by Sending $5.2 Billion to Ivy League Schools in Gifts and Contracts?

THE LONG MARCH THROUGH THE INSTITUTIONS CONTINUES UNABATED: How a Leading Academic Journal Was Captured by Left-Wing Radicals

THIS WILL NOT END WELL: Professors say Gen Z students can’t read, forcing colleges to lower academic standards.

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Have a great week!

***Unfortunately, I couldn’t get Substack to present this poem with either no space between the lines of each couplet or indented second lines. Hence the forward / slash to mark line breaks.

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Step forward, my son. / Step forward when all around you turn and run.

Step forward when the storm draws too near; / Step forward to defend those most dear.

Step forward when the water is deep and cold; / Step forward to defend the weak and old.

Step forward when the sun wilts the weak; / Step forward to defend the mild and meek.

Step forward when the siren makes its sound; / Step forward to defend this sacred ground.

Step forward when the mighty lose your trust; / Step forward to defend what’s just.

Step forward when you’re misunderstood; / Step forward to defend what’s good.

Step forward when there is no one but you; / Step forward to defend what’s true.

Step forward when too many wear the face of fear; / Step forward to defend those you most revere.

Step forward when death’s shadow casts its pall; / Step forward though you might falter and fall.

Step forward when you feel most unloved; / Step forward to defend your best beloved.

Step forward to your hill and make your stand; / Step forward to defend the fort unmanned.

Step forward despite life’s common sorrows; / Step forward to defend the humble heroes.

Step forward through life’s petty wars; / Step forward, my son, and honor is yours.

Step forward, my son. Step forward.

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I would be grateful if you shared this poem with family and friends.

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THE GOOD

A YOUNG HERO: What One Australian Teen Did to Save His Family Is Superhuman.

HENRY KNOX: The Most Unlikely Hero of the American Revolution.

EXCELLENT NEWS: US Economic Freedom Posts Biggest Annual Gain In 25 Years

MEDICINE/HEALTH ROUND UP

• This Vitamin B3 Supplement Could Cut Your Skin Cancer Risk by up to 54%.

• Most aspirin use in middle-aged adults m…

Read more

DUMB & DUMBER (NO. 129)

K-12 EDITION

#JustWalkAway: Seattle Public Schools Roll Out Gender Book Kit Lessons For Kindergartners

SERIOUSLY, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? ‘Horrified’: Lawsuit accuses public school district of pushing young students to explicit porn

ARE WE REACHING PEAK INSANITY? Non-Binary Teacher Cites Personal Safety Concerns to Avoid Dir…

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My last essay “Thoughts on History” presented a few preliminary thoughts on the philosophy of history, particularly with regard to what I call the metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics of history. Today’s essay applies those general ideas to the development a new approach to history that I call “the new moral history,” which I first introduced in America’s Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration that Defined It.

I first began to think about and develop the idea of “moral history” in the summer of 2016 when I was just starting to write a book on the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution. The revolution is, of course, the most written about subject in American history, and I began with this question: is there anything original left to say about the American Revolution and its causes and meaning? To be clear, I was not interested in writing a book on a tiny, fractional part of the Revolution. My hope, certainly my ambition, was to write something original and capacious that would open new avenues to the Revolution’s deepest causes.

As I was beginning to sketch such a history, I came upon some letters and other writings by John Adams and Thomas Paine that opened a new way of viewing the Revolution and its causes, and which led me to the conclusion that “yes,” something new and original could be said about the Revolution. Here’s what I found.

During his retirement years, John Adams thought a good deal about the meaning of the American Revolution. In a fascinating letter written to Thomas Jefferson in 1815, he asked a simple question: “What do we mean by the Revolution?” Surely not the war, he answered rhetorically. “That was no part of the Revolution,” he declared. The war, he said, “was only an Effect and Consequence” of the Revolution. The true Revolution, he continued, “was in the Minds of the People, and this was effected . . . in the course of fifteen years before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington.” A few years later, Adams suggested again that the “real American Revolution” was represented by a “radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections” of the American people. The former president was suggesting that the root cause of the American Revolution was to be found in a radical change in the colonists’ moral reasoning and political principles. Adams’s comments raise important questions: how and why was the American mind revolutionized in the years before 1776, and, more particularly, what new moral ideas defined America’s emerging revolutionary consciousness? Adams considered these questions “surely interesting to humanity to investigate, and perpetuate to posterity.”

Like Adams, Thomas Paine also understood that a revolutionary transformation had taken place in the American consciousness in the years leading up to 1776. As Paine put it so strikingly in Common Sense, “a new æra for politics is struck; a new method of thinking hath arisen.” He described this “new method of thinking” in an extraordinary letter to the French philosophe, the Abbé Raynal. Paine told the French cleric that the American “style and manner of thinking ha[d] undergone a revolution more extraordinary than the political revolution of the country.” The Americans now see, he explained, “with other eyes; [they] hear with other ears; and think with other thoughts, than those [they] formerly used.” This revolution of the mind transformed the colonists into “another people.” Paine identified the precise meaning of that revolution when he wrote in Rights of Man: “the Independence of America” was “accompanied by a revolution in the principles and practice of governments.” The Americans had done something, he continued, that no other people in history had ever achieved: they founded their new governments “on a moral theory . . . on the indefeasible, hereditary rights of man.” The discovery, development, and adoption of that “moral theory” by the American people in the years before 1776 is the embodiment of the “real” revolution described by Adams.

But what exactly was this “new method of thinking” and the new “moral theory” associated with the American Revolution? How and why did colonial Americans develop a “moral theory” about the “indefeasible, hereditary rights of man”? And what role did this moral theory play in the coming of the Revolutionaries’ revolution? Specifically, I began to think about how ideas affect motives and events. This was my “ah-ha” moment when I realized that these questions opened new historical vistas from which to view the American Revolution. What follows is a prolegomenon to the core tenets of the new moral history.

Broadly speaking, the new moral history is concerned with the nature of causation and agency in the course of human events. It attempts to explain behavior in given historical contexts by showing the connection between principles and practice in the day-to-day actions and interactions of men and women in a social context. This approach is not simply a history of the development of certain moral theories, although it can be that in part. Its primary goal is to examine the intersection between moral thought and moral action, between what people say and what they do (or don’t do). The new moral history studies the what, why, and how of moral reasoning, and then it looks for the connections with the what, why, and how of moral action. It studies the modes of reasoning and ideas used by individual men and women as they evaluated, judged, and dealt with their social reality, and it examines the alternatives confronted by individuals and groups of individuals as they made decisions about what to do or how to act. It emphasizes thinking, judging, choosing, and acting individuals over large-scale social processes moved by unseen forces.

The new moral history begins with certain assumptions about human nature: first, that individuals are the primary unit of moral value; second, that human nature is knowable and sometimes predictable; third, that man’s faculty of reason can know cause-and-effect relationships in nature and human nature; fourth, that individuals are confronted every day with choices, and that they have the free will to choose between alternatives; fifth, that freely thinking (rationally and irrationally) and freely acting (morally and immorally) individuals are capable of making decisions and acting on them; sixth, that purposive human agents cause events to happen; and finally, that human thought and action can have intended and unintended consequences. This view of human nature suggests that individuals are morally responsible for their decisions and actions and the consequences that follow therefrom. Thus, the new moral history puts the thinking back into ideas, the judgment back into intentions, and the volition back into actions.

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The new moral history has the benefit of being compatible with how eighteenth-century Americans saw the nature of reality, truth, causality, human nature, and the processes of historical change. All American Revolutionaries believed that there are moral and political truths—truths absolute, certain, universal, permanent, and immutable—that can be known by reason and acted upon. Such was the purpose of the Declaration of Independence—to declare certain self-evident truths thought to be accessible to all men everywhere. Likewise, in Federalist No. 31, Alexander Hamilton appealed to “certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend.” Hamilton and his fellow Americans assumed that human reason was fallible, but they also assumed that the discovery of truth about the most important matters was possible and that by grounding their principles on axiomatic truths, they could “command the assent” of the minds of their fellow Americans. These truths, they believed, could not only be assented to by other Americans, but they believed they could be understood by all men everywhere because they thought these truths transcended their immediate historical situation. The Revolutionary generation viewed these truths as objectively true and not simply as historically conditioned. It is not possible to understand the moral and political thought of America’s Revolutionary generation without knowing and respecting this fact.

Eighteenth-century Americans also assumed that society is made up of autonomous moral agents who define the course of events. Understanding men’s moral principles, their modes of reasoning, their motives, their options, their choices, and their actions was the key to understanding the role of causation in human action and history. They believed that motives explain actions, that moral principles explain motives, and that moral reasoning explains moral principles. And if events are the direct consequence of individual (and group) principles, decisions, intentions, and actions, then it is imperative for historians to study the moral principles, choices, and behaviors of individuals, which, if shared by many or most of the individuals in a society, shapes the general character of a society. In this way, then, a culture with its unique manners and mores reflects the moral character of individuals writ large, which means that historians should be able discern patterns of moral belief and action that may reveal the existence of a common moral culture. Hence the history of human events is, for better or worse, the history of men and women acting according to a conception of what they think is good, right, just, and true.

The new moral history is about discovering the causes of social events in the ideas, motives, and actions of moral agents acting as individuals or as groups. This is precisely how Thomas Dawes, a colonel in the Massachusetts militia, studied and presented the causes and consequences of the American Revolution. In a 1787 Fourth of July oration celebrating American independence, Dawes informed his audience that they were convened “to consider the feelings, manners and principles which led to our Independence—the effects which have flowed, and the consequences that will probably follow, from that great event.” Dawes was, in effect, pursuing the research project described years later by John Adams, which called for examining how and why the American Revolution represented a radical transformation in the “Minds of the People.” For Adams, the war for independence was a consequence of the “radical change” that occurred “in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people” in the decade before independence. Dawes saw the Revolution in the same way. He insisted to his audience that when “contemplating the principles which originated” or caused the war and the Revolution, they must “not confound them with the occasions that only ripened, our Independence.” For Dawes, moral principles inspire actions, which in turn create events. The primary moral principle that motivated colonial Americans to act and therefore caused the Revolution, according to Dawes, was their recognition of and dedication to the principle that their “liberties are founded on the broad basis of everlasting justice.” Their reaction to the Stamp Act, he argued, was grounded in moral principle, moral judgment, and moral action. The colonists were dedicated to a certain conception of justice, which inspired them to act when they saw it being violated by British imperial officials. To understand why American Revolutionaries acted in the ways they did, we must begin by understanding their conception of justice and what it meant to them.

This common view of the underlying cause of the American Revolution rested upon an even deeper view of human nature and moral agency. According to the Bostonian John Perkins writing in 1771, men have “absolute liberty,” which means “a person has been supposed capable of determining differently, all circumstances remaining the same.” By “[m]oral freedom,” Perkins “meant a power of determining according to apprehended good and evil; opposed to a state of moral necessity, either natural, or induced by long custom, habit, passion, or some special depravity.” Moral historians take seriously the principle that “[a]ll appearances evidence that man was form’d for self-direction; since by his intellectual judgment; disengage himself from prejudices; foresee events, and conduct accordingly.” The following year, Stephen West bolstered Perkin’s view of moral action by affirming the cause-and-effect relationship between moral judgment and moral action: “If every moral event hath an answerable cause on which it is dependent for its existence; then all moral events come into existence under the influence of their several causes—an influence which is previous to the event and extrinsic of it, and with which the event is certainly connected.” These assumptions lay behind the revolution in American moral thought and action during the second half of the eighteenth century, and they provide a window through which we can see the deepest causes of the Revolution.

How and why, then, shall historians go about discovering the objective reality and meaning of past thought and action?

Historical objectivity refers to a relationship between a subject and an object. It occurs when a subject (the historian) interacts with and accurately re-presents past thoughts, actions, or events (the object). The most difficult part of this process is to uncover the reasons behind past actions. The act of doing history always begins in the present. It starts with a historian who wants to know something about some person(s), idea(s), action(s), or event(s) in the past. The historians’ craft is an act of recovery and reenactment. It seeks, first, to recover the objective truth about the what, when, how, and why of past thought and action, and then it reenacts that recovered knowledge in the form of a narrative story. This task presupposes that scholars be motivated by more than an antiquarian interest in a particular historical subject; they must be inspired by a sincere if not a passionate sense of curiosity and a desire to know the truth about past thoughts and actions as well as their possible relevance for the present.

History’s secrets can be revealed when historians ask probing questions of past thinkers and actors in order to reproduce their thoughts, motives, and actions. Scholars must first determine which questions were uppermost in the minds of their subjects and why their subjects were compelled to ask and answer them in the way they did. At a deeper level, the moral historian will ask: What did person X who wrote, said, or did Y mean by it? In other words, why did the subject under investigation write, say, or do some particular thing?

To answer these questions, the historians’ craft requires, as we have said, epistemological modesty: it seeks to understand the thought and action of past thinkers and actors in the context of their own self-understanding. It should not superimpose on past thought and action present-day epistemological assumptions about how ideas work, which means it should not assume that the thought of the present is superior to that of the past. In fact, true historical sensitivity and objectivity means beginning with a kind of naïve wonder, which means opening oneself up to the possibility that we might actually have something to learn from past thought, and, even more shockingly, that past thought could even be superior to that of the present.

The new moral history recognizes that authors past, present, and future are responsible for the thoughts they think and the words they write. It seeks to understand particular events by examining the ends and means available to and chosen (or rejected) by historical actors in a given place and time. This requires of historians that they attempt to enter the minds of past thinkers and actors, to the best of their ability, in order to see the world as their subjects saw it, to see the problems, questions, challenges, alternatives, and choices that motivated them to think and act as they did. This means attempting to view a past world from the inside out, that is, from the perspective of the particular thinker or actor. Intellectual historians must attempt to see the world through the author’s eyes, to hear with his or her ears, and to think with and through the author’s mind. We must follow, study, and contemplate the logic and argument of a text or speech. We must attempt to understand to the best of our ability what James Otis, Daniel Dulany, Richard Bland, John Dickinson, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, John Adams, James Wilson, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and scores of others from the Revolutionary generation thought and said. Only by first understanding what they thought or said can we know why past actors thought, spoke, or acted as they did.

By this method, we can achieve or come close to achieving historical objectivity, which is knowledge of what, when, how, and most importantly, why past events happened. Answering the “why” question is the great challenge of American Revolutionary historians, but to address it in a meaningful way we must confront the problem of intention and motivation directly, which is the lynchpin between theory and practice. We must seek to recover the intentions of those historical actors who participated in the train of events before and after 1776. This takes us into the world of moral reasoning, ideas, principles, motivations, intentions, and actions. But how can we know why certain individuals acted as they did? To answer this question, scholars must go in search of historical evidence to recreate a scene or moment of human action (which includes thinking). Such evidence includes written documents, which typically means treatises, essays, pamphlets, sermons, speeches, diaries, letters, petitions, remonstrances etc. from the period or individuals under examination. Historians must then read and attempt to understand the content, argument, and purposes of these texts as the author or speaker understood them. Documents must be read carefully and reread. To discover the motives of people who lived hundreds of years ago requires tireless research, reading, reconstruction, and thinking.

The new moral history recognizes that “ideas have consequences” and oftentimes intended consequences, but it must also be capacious enough in its methodological scope to recognize the complex interactions of human thought and action from multiple angles or perspectives. The most advanced and sophisticated form of moral history recognizes that ideas inspire actions and actions create events, and events in turn inspire new ideas and actions that may be different from those that inspired them in the first instance. In other words, the realm of ideas evolves and interacts with the realm of action in a dialectical relationship and where the outcomes can be different than those originally intended. Human interaction is complex and therefore history is not simply linear; it is not always an issue of individuals making choices and acting on them. Thus the new moral history takes seriously the role of contingency in human affairs. It recognizes that decisions and actions could have turned out other than they did; that certain ideas, choices, decisions, and actions carried out in different contexts can have very different results; that good ideas and good intentions can sometimes have deleterious consequences different from those intended. When ideas (true or false, good or bad) are translated into action, they can have intended and unintended consequences, some of which are short term and some long term.

Thus, the new moral history must capture the conflict of visions, choices, and actions that exists between individuals and within societies. The simple fact is all individuals must make choices between alternatives all the time, and sometimes those choices come into conflict with one another. In the context of the American Revolution, there was conflict between Great Britain and her American colonies, between American Patriots and Loyalists, between more radical and more conservative Patriots, and then between even the most radical revolutionaries. And not only was there conflict between individuals or groups of individuals, but there was also conflict (and sometimes paralysis) within the minds of each individual person as they confronted difficult choices on innumerable issues. One can see these kinds of internal tensions in the thought of reluctant Revolutionaries, such as a James Otis and John Dickinson. To grasp the wholeness of the Revolution, to understand its full depth and breadth, requires an examination of the arguments, choices, and actions of a wide spectrum of contending views. At the very least, one should assume that the principles, choices, and actions of the Loyalists and George III were just as real and just as sincere as those of the Patriots. This is why a moral history of the American Revolution from the Loyalist perspective is needed just as much as one from the Patriot perspective. Both sides must be understood if we are to fully understand the nature and meaning of the Revolution.

The new moral history therefore recognizes and brings to life the drama and sometimes the comedy and tragedy of the human condition. It acknowledges that individuals make decisions in the face of doubt and errors of knowledge. It recognizes and takes into account ambiguity, contradiction, accidents, and anomalies. There is almost always some uncertainty in human affairs because individuals have incomplete knowledge or information. The Revolutionary generation knew this fact about human nature. In the 37^th essay of The Federalist, James Madison noted that the incompleteness and uncertainty of human knowledge is grounded in three deficiencies associated with human cognition: first, the “indistinctness of the object” under examination; second, the “imperfection of the organ of conception”; and, third, the “inadequateness of the vehicle of ideas.” A veil of obscurity between subject and object makes certain knowledge difficult, and the transference of that knowledge from one person to another only compounds the problem. Madison informs his audience that developing political concepts that are true (i.e., that reflect reality as it is) and then accurately conveying and receiving those concepts from one person to another is one of the great challenges of the human condition. The discovery and transmission of moral and political truth is inherently fraught with error given man’s nature. Madison thought this fact of the human condition was the greatest source of conflict between individuals and groups of individuals. Historians face the very same problem described by Madison: the eighteenth-century objects they study are indistinct, the historians’ organ of conception is fallible, and the vehicle by which historians transmit their historical recreations is imperfect. This is why the historians’ craft calls for epistemological modesty.

The new moral history also recognizes that different individuals work on different levels of consciousness. Not all thinkers or ideas are equal. Some individuals operate at the highest level of conscious awareness, some are middling thinkers, and some follow their unconscious passions, opinions, and interests. Some ideas are innovative, brilliant and influential, while some are banal, quickly forgotten, or never even noticed. Thomas Paine, America’s best-known democratic theorist, knew that there was a hierarchy of wisdom and influence when it came to explaining the causes of the American Revolution. He knew that not all Americans could make the sophisticated and nuanced arguments of James Otis, John Adams, James Wilson, Thomas Jefferson, or Alexander Hamilton. In his Letter to the Abbé Raynal in 1782, Paine noted that in response to the Stamp Act every American “had a right to give his opinion; and there were many, who with the best intentions, did not choose the best, nor indeed the true ground, to defending their cause.” Ordinary men “felt themselves right by a general impulse, without being able to separate, analyze, and arrange the parts.” The truth is—a truth confirmed by daily experience—that a few individuals live by a self-generated, consciously chosen, and rational process of thought, while most others absorb subconsciously the dominant ideas of their culture.

The new moral history likewise acknowledges that there is a hierarchy of influence in society. The ideas and actions of some individuals have the power to motivate and influence hundreds or thousands or millions of individuals in ways that the ideas and actions of others do not. Moreover, some thinkers and writers are original and ahead of their time, while others are distinguished for summing up the dominant ideas of their time. The hierarchy of influence is also connected to actions as well. Some individuals are leaders, and some are followers. Some have skills and abilities that others do not. The fact is that some individuals did more to bring about the Revolution or to bring it to a successful conclusion than others. For instance, the fiery speeches of Patrick Henry, the organizing skills of Samuel Adams, the moral leadership of George Washington, the constitutional arguments of John Adams, the rhetorical brilliance of Thomas Paine, the financial acumen of Robert Morris, the tactical genius of General Nathanael Greene, and the literary style of Thomas Jefferson commanded a greater degree of respect and influence than did the abilities of others.

Finally, the new moral history recognizes that some ideas are true and some are false, some are wise and some are foolish, and some are good and some are bad, which means they can and should be judged by the historian. It is a historical truism that past thinkers and actors almost always viewed their own ideas as right and therefore true and those of their opponents as wrong and therefore false. The Loyalists thought they were right and the Patriots wrong, just as the Anti-Federalists thought they were right and the Federalists wrong. It seems fitting, then, for historians to test, evaluate, and judge how past actors understood the truth of their ideas and actions. The most interesting kind of history recaptures first the intellectual and then the political and social clash of two or more contending opinions about the most important questions. This means that historians must be open to the possibility that one or the other position in any past dispute was right and therefore true and the other wrong and therefore untrue, or that both positions could be wrong. The historian must also confront, observe, evaluate, and judge actions relative to the ideas that inform the behavior of past actors. If military historians can judge (and they do) some strategic or tactical decisions to be “brilliant” or “disastrous,” then it seems reasonable that intellectual historians should be able to judge moral or political ideas to be true or false, good or bad, just or unjust. The new moral history must not be a value-free social science, but, to be clear, neither should it engage in vulgar moralism or moral self-righteousness. The historian’s first responsibility is to recreate the past as it happened. Then and only then, can he or she render judgment on past thought and action. Scholars of the American Revolution should be neither scientists nor preachers. Their moral evaluation of past thought and action should be fair and balanced and conducted with great care and caution.

Consider the battle of ideas between American Revolutionaries and British imperial officials. At its core, this debate was not primarily about taxes or representation; it was about the nature of justice and right. American Revolutionaries acted on the assumption that their principles of justice and right were true (objectively, absolutely, and self-evidently true), whereas the British viewed their principles of justice and right as historically true relative to time and place. At the deepest philosophical level, the great point of contention between these two sides concerned the nature of truth itself. On some level, these competing viewpoints can and should be evaluated and judged by historians. This does not mean, however, that historians can or should be partisans for one side or another, nor does it mean that historians should anachronistically judge the past as the means by which to judge the present. The fact is that elements of truth and falsity, good and evil, justice and injustice can exist on two sides in a debate or war, particularly if it is a fratricidal debate or war. In examining the debates between American Whigs and British imperial officials or American Patriots and Loyalists or Federalists and Anti-Federalists, it is entirely proper for historians to assess and judge the power, depth, originality, influence, and, ultimately, the truthfulness of an argument. It is entirely appropriate for historians to analyze past ideas, principles, intentions, motives, and actions, and then judge them as true or false, good or bad, always recognizing that the historical loser of a political contest might very well have had the truer argument. The new moral history welcomes studies that examine and evaluate—even positively—Loyalist political thought and action or the decisions of George III. The standards by which historians judge ideas and actions as true or false, good or bad, just or unjust should be stated openly and clearly. Their standard of judgment should likewise be open to evaluation and criticism.

In the end, the new moral history has the added advantage of providing a life-enhancing incentive to those who study history. History matters precisely because ideas matter. We study past thought and action to learn from it, to be guided by it, and to provide models of right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust. Thus, the study of history is primarily a humanistic and not a scientific enterprise, one that can be, and in many ways should be, restored as a branch of philosophy. Indeed, the pursuit of historical truth is a form of philosophical inquiry. As John Adams learned from Bolingbroke and Bolingbroke from Dionysius Halicarnassus and Dionysius from Thucydides, history rightly understood is “philosophy teaching by examples.” History is philosophy’s handmaiden, or maybe it’s the other way ‘round! The value-free approach to history advocated by most historians has very little to teach us in the present other than as a quaint, antiquarian curiosity. The new moral history, by contrast, can help us to recover our past to better serve our present and future.

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**A reminder to readers: please know that I do not use footnotes or citations in my Substack essays. I do, however, attempt to identify the author of all quotations. All of the quotations and general references that I use are fully documented in my personal drafts, which will be made public on demand or when I publish these essays in book form.

***ANNOUNCEMENT: I have been traveling a lot lately (just spent nine days in Texas) and will be on the road again several times over the course of the next couple of months. I’ll do my best to keep up the pace of one post per week, but I can’t promise.

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THE GOOD

THE CAUSES OF WEALTH CREATION: Understanding the Great Enrichment: how mass prosperity replaced mass poverty. Britain became the first country to do learning-by-experiment at scale.

IF YOU DO NOTHING ELSE TODAY, PLEASE WATCH THIS SHORT VIDEO FROM X. It’s a reminder of all that’s good and beautiful in life:

SOMETHING GOOD ABOUT SOMETHING BAD & UGLY: Socialism is a hate crime.

ALL CRIME IS DOWN (THAT’S GOOD) EXCEPT WELFARE FRAUD, WHICH IS UP—WAY UP (THAT’S BAD)! What is the cause of all this? (The cause of welfare fraud is the existence of the welfare State. That it would lead to fraud is a basically a law of nature.)

PRETTY SURE MOST ATHLETES HAVE KNOWN THIS FOR A LONG TIME: Pre-exercise sexual activity does not harm strength or endurance in male athletes, finds new study.

LET’S CELEBRATE TRUE HEROES: Marine Corps legend ‘Ripley at the Bridge’ is finally getting the Medal of Honor: John Ripley vs. 20,000 communists. Who you got?

MEDICINE/HEALTH ROUND UP

• High-dose Vitamin D reduces MS activity, study finds.

• Poor sleep may accelerate brain aging.

• Scientists Identified Structural, Brain-Wide Changes During Menstruation.

• Breakthrough Blood Test Detects Head and Neck Cancer up to 10 Years Before Symptoms.

• Fragments of Bacteria in Our Gut May Lull Our Brains to Sleep at Night.

THIS IS VERY GOOD NEWS, INDEED! The number of federal government employees is now at its lowest level in 50+ years. Next, let’s go for the lowest level in 100 years!

SCIENCE ROUND UP

• Fueling research in nuclear thermal propulsion.

• Maybe the Shortest Path to Mars Requires a 240,000-Mile Detour.

HEROES DON’T ALWAYS WEAR CAPES: ‘I have to keep on going’: 13-year-old swims in rough sea for 4 hours to find help for family

ARCHEOLOGY/ANTHROPOLOGY ROUND UP

• Archaeologists find a supersized medieval shipwreck in Denmark.

• Ancient Jesus-era footprints discovered on Scotland beach, triggering remarkable race

MORE NUCLEAR IS GOOD: The future of American nuclear energy just touched down in Utah.

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THE BAD

IT’S WHAT THEY DO: The Communism Isn’t Working, So Let’s Communism Harder.

THIS IS MARXISM APPLIED TO THE ENVIRONMENT: The 10 Most Insane Requirements Of The Green New Deal.

OUR COMING SOCIALISM: “The Warmth of Collectivism” v. Capitalism.

“OBSTA PRINCIPIIS”—“RESIST FIRST BEGINNINGS”: 7 left-wing groups to watch in 2026

WELFARE STATE WATCH:

• From Minneapolis to “Somaliapolis”: How Incentives Reshaped a City. A Case Study in Welfare, Incentives, and Parallel Society.

• ‘Midtermunition’: Mamdani Is Already Trashing New York to Third-World Status.

• New SNAP Work Requirements, Included In Trump Megabill, Now In Effect

• Sen. James Lankford Goes For Jugular Of $100 Billion In Blue State Unemployment Fraud

ASK YOURSELF THIS QUESTION: WHY ARE REPUBLICANS ALWAYS UNABLE TO OPPOSE AND EVEN MARGINALLY REDUCE THE SIZE OF THE WELFARE STATE? Medicaid fraud and abuse are hitting unthinkable levels.

DEEP STATE WATCH:

• Zombie’ programs given cash to live again!

• Watchdog alleges Netflix coordinated with FBI to promote left-wing narratives

• How Biden and Fauci suppressed the COVID-19 lab-leak theory

• Teaching ferrets to binge drink: Rand Paul’s annual Festivus report finds $1.6 TRILLION in government waste

• Four ways Trump has dismantled the ‘Deep State’ since inauguration

PEOPLE KEEP TALKING ABOUT “THE YOUNG MAN PROBLEM” (AS THEY SHOULD), BUT WE ALSO NEED TO TALK ABOUT “THE YOUNG WOMAN PROBLEM (AS WE SHOULD),” WHICH IS A VERY DIFFERENT KIND OF PROBLEM, BUT A PROBLEM NONETHELESS: Young women are radicalising.

IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES:

THOUGHTS, COMMENTS, REACTION? The Least Laid Generation in History: Gen Z Is Ghosting Sex — and the Implications Are Huge.

LIVING IN HERBERT MARCUSE’S WORLD . . .

THIS IS NOT GOING TO END WELL, AND I DON’T MEAN POLITICALLY. Consider the sociological consequences of this ideological gap between young men and women:

CHINA WATCH:

• China’s Xi Publicly References Recent Military Shake-Up

• Chinese Academics Who Attended Chinese Military-Run Schools Work At US Colleges

• Las Vegas bio lab contained human samples, testing materials, FBI says.

• HOW CHINA CORRUPTS ACADEMIC RESEARCH.

• Dire Strait: Sure Looks Like China Is Writing Off the Ayatollahs.

GREAT BRITAIN WATCH

• This perverse government is a greater threat to the British way of life than Russia.

• British Students Mourn “Beloved” Ayatollah.

• How the Royal Navy shrank to its smallest ‘since English Civil War.’

• Decades in the planning, the Islamic Republic of Britain.

OH CANADA:

• This Canadian Man Is Poor, So the Government Offered to Kill Him. Here’s What Happened.

• Death Cult: Canada Set To Surpass 100,000 Assisted Suicides

• “One out of every 20 deaths in Canada is now caused by the government’s assisted suicide program.”

CIVILIZATIONAL DECLINE AND FALL: Paris wine show reflects surging demand for zero- and low-alcohol drinks.

STONER NATION: 20 Million Americans Say They’re Always High, And Even Liberals Recognize The Craze Has Gone Too Far

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THE UGLY

IS THIS WHERE WE ARE IN 21^ST-CENTURY AMERICA?

• Is Giving Cross-Sex Drugs to Mentally Ill People Resulting in Trans Killers?

• Karol Markowicz: The rise in transgender killers proves that we have a major mental health crisis unfolding.

THEY LIED AND CHILDREN DIED: Parents told daughter would ‘probably die’ without sex change surgery, suit claims

. . . and THE BEAUTIFUL

Thomas Gainsborough. Thomas Gainsborough, Mary, Countess Howe, 1763–64, Oil on canvas, English Heritage, Kenwood House, London. H/T New Criterion

Have a great week!

*I am going to Texas this weekend for nine days, so there will likely be no post from The Redneck Intellectual next week and possibly the week after as well.

DUMB & DUMBER (NO. 127)

K-12 EDITION

WOULD YOU PERMIT YOUR CHILDREN TO ATTEND THESE SCHOOLS? Sixth graders taught ‘binding’ and ‘coming out’ advice in ‘Transgender Week’ lesson

THEY REALLY DO WANT TO …

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* I know I promised a series of essays on marriage (which are still coming in a few weeks), but I’ve been distracted recently thinking about the nature of history. Before you begin reading this essay, stop and ask yourself this simple question: what is history? Think about it for a bit before you start reading. I may do one more essay on history, and then I’ll get to the question of marriage. Hope you enjoy!

I’m making the audio recording to this essay available to all readers with the hope that you’ll think my work worthy of a paid subscription.

This essay is concerned with the nature, meaning, methods, purposes, and possibilities of history. To that end, it is an exercise in the philosophy of history, which begins by addressing three fundamental questions: what is the past, how do we know it, and why does knowledge of the past matter?

Framed in this way, history mirrors the branches of philosophy. It has a metaphysics, an epistemology, and an ethics. The metaphysics of history (i.e., the “what” of history) is concerned with the nature of past reality. The epistemology of history (i.e., the “how” of history) is concerned with the means by which we know or acquire knowledge of the past. The ethics of history (i.e., the “why” of history) is concerned with the meaning of history for the present.

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The Metaphysics of History

I begin with a few general observations on the “what” or what I have called the metaphysics of history. Simply defined, history is the past, or that which occurred in the past through linear time. The past is that which occurred one second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, decade, century, and millennium ago, and so on for every human who has ever lived. Metaphysically, there is never really a “present” in history, only a past. For the living, the present is a nanosecond half-way house between past and future. In the broadest sense, history is whatever existed and/or happened somewhere in the past from the beginning of time to the always evaporating present.

What are the metaphysical qualities and characteristics that define the past?

First, the past no longer exists; it cannot be observed or experienced firsthand. The past is dead. History is what once was, but now it is gone. There is no eternal return, and no one can relive the past. At best, it exists in memory. Second, the past is unalterable; it cannot be changed. To put a twist on Aristotle’s Law of Identity applied to history, we might say “A was A,” or whatever was, was. As such, the past is metaphysically absolute. There are no re-dos in history. Third, the past—or at least most of the past—is lost to us forever, and our knowledge of the parts which are recoverable is incomplete and imperfect. The full history human existence includes an incalculable number of events for which there is no record, which means that most of human history is inaccessible to us. Finally, the past is and shall always remain a foreign place to us, and its visitors from the present are always strangers in a strange land without the means to fully know and understand the people they study. Their distance from us can never be entirely bridged. We can never fully understand the past.

History has a second and more common definition, which is the study and recording of what happened in the past. The ancient Greek word historia means “inquiry” or “investigation.” Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary defined history as “An account of facts, particularly of facts respecting nations or states; a narration of events in the order in which they happened, with their causes and effects.” In this sense, history is the pursuit of knowledge about what happened in the past, how it happened, and why it happened. In this sense, history is the creation of a social memory of things thought, said, and done. As such, history is a bridge between past and present. Events—human events—are a consequence of human action, and human action is the result of human thought. In a sense, then, as R. G. Collingwood once put it, “All history is the history of thought”—but that does not make history the same as philosophy. History is related to philosophy, but it is not the same thing. History is the study of what, how, and why humans thought in the past and the relationship of that thought to the what, how, and why of their actions. Thought and action are mediated by choice.

Ever since Herodotus, history has become a form of knowledge and a recognized field of study. History is the study of past human affairs, but those affairs are not static; they are always moving forward in time. Those who study the past are historians. Historians enter the portal of history, transport themselves in their imaginations to a particular time in the past, and then follow their subjects as they move forward in time to an end point. We might say that the “doing” of history is the study of change over time, which begins and ends at a point or time in past. As such, history requires a forward-moving narrative that takes readers from point A to Z. It studies the cause-and-effect relationships between human thought and action in time and across space and between actors in the past.

History comes in many shapes and forms. It is the most comprehensive form of knowledge because it studies what people think and do, which means that its potential topics are virtually endless. As such, the study or field of history can be as broad as the full panoply of human thought and action. Amongst the most common or prominent forms of history are social, demographic, cultural, political, constitutional, administrative, legal, diplomatic, military, economic, literary, medical, and intellectual history to name the most prominent.

The first challenge of history writing is a recognition the object of one’s study no longer exists. The historian’s job is to bring back to life, at least figuratively and artistically, that which is dead. The doing of history is the re-creation of a remembered or discovered past. Initially, the doing of history was concerned with recollection and retelling. This is what Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey do. Later, the doing of history—certainly modern history—became an act of discovery and re-enactment, that is, the act of discovering something unknown, lost, or forgotten, and the re-enactment of it for the sake of others. Most often, this knowledge is captured in the form of a book, essay, film, or documentary.

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The Epistemology of History

Let us turn now to the “how” or what I have called the epistemology of history. The question we must now ask is, how can we know the past? How can we in the present know the what, how, and why of past thought and action?

The study of history, like philosophy, begins with a sense of wonder and curiosity. A good historian, as with Socrates, begins with the recognition of his or her own ignorance about a past event and then pursues some kind of explanatory knowledge about it by doing historical research. The doing or making of history is a mode of thinking that requires the discovery and re-enactment (usually in the form of a written narrative) of past events. Put differently, the study of history is a search for the truth—the objective truth or something approximating it—as it relates to events that happened in the past. As such, history is a form of knowledge. The “doing” of history—by which I mean the researching, studying, and writing of history—is the work of a historian. Historians want to know what happened relative to some event in the past, when and where it happened, how it happened, why it happened, what its consequences were, and what its meaning was for the people who experienced the event and for future generations. Knowing the truth about the past, however, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, is difficult.

We enter and arrive at some point in the past as though pilgrims on a journey to a foreign land. The historian’s goal is to recover what once was and as it was. But the question is, how do we get from the present to a past that is dead to us? How do we get to a time that no longer exists? What is our portal to the past? In other words, how do historians discover and re-create the past for the present and future?

Our entry point to the past typically begins by reading the histories of historians already written, but our question is how did those historians discover and recreate the past? One thing is certain: we cannot know the past beyond our own lives through direct, empirical perception. We cannot be eyewitnesses to the events we wish to know. Those in the present can only know the past if those who lived it left behind some kind of record of their lives. The historian’s knowledge of the past is therefore always second-hand and is mediated by the nature and availability of the historical evidence, most often in the form of written documents (e.g., books, pamphlets, essays, speeches, newspapers, resolutions, petitions, declarations, laws, decrees, diaries, autobiographies, correspondence, court records, wills, deeds, notes of transaction, contracts, etc.), oral traditions, or various other relics from the time.

The historian’s business is to discover and reconstruct the events that brought the evidence into being, as well as the causes of those events and the consequences that issued from them. There is no history if there is no extant evidence. Historians must not make claims about the past that are not supported by the evidence or historical record. For these reasons and more, the historian must therefore begin with a degree epistemological modesty.

Doing history requires thinking historically, which means the recovery of past thought and action, not as a static snapshot, but as a moving picture that involves cause-and-effect relationships between many actors. The historian’s craft involves discovery, collection, selection, distillation, synthesis, organization, interpretation, and narrative. The process is inductive. It means drawing generalizations based on countless particulars. History is a mode of thinking that requires separating the wheat from the chaff. Historians typically examine large numbers of documents in their research, often numbering in the hundreds or more, which might not necessarily have obvious connections to one another. The historian must choose, select, and rank by causal importance the evidence that he or she has collected. Much historical research and writing involves a process of elimination. This means that the historian’s craft is concerned, first and foremost, with choice, selection, and recreation, which means ranking hierarchically what is and is not important for the subject and story. The historian must also make sense of contradictions in the historical record and chart a causal explanation for what happened.

Historians investigating the past typically begin by examining external events (i.e., the effects, by which I mean the actions of individuals doing things), and then seek to discover the internal events (i.e., the causes, by which I mean the thinking, ideas, and choices of individuals). Let’s consider two examples. We know for instance, that John Adams delivered a speech in the Continental Congress on July 1, 1776, and we know that George Washington crossed the Delaware River on December 25, 1776. Knowing that they did these things is not enough. The historian seeks to discover the context, motivations, ideas and thinking processes that led Adams and Washington to do what they did. We want to know, for instance, what Adams said, how he said it, and why he said it. Likewise, we want to know Washington’s strategic thinking and decision-making that led him to lead his troops across an icy river at night in the middle of the winter. Why did he and his troops cross the Delaware when and where he did? What were the causes and consequences of both events, and how are both events related?

Historians, as opposed to annalists or philosophers, are never concerned with just external actions or internal thoughts to exclusion of the other because thought and action are inextricably connected for the historian in a dynamic relationship. The goal of the historian is not simply to re-present an event, but rather to explain its causes and consequences as well as its character and meaning. The “what” must be explained by the “how” and the “why.” We know about Adams’s speech and Washington’s journey, for instance, primarily through the private correspondence of those who participated in or were witnesses to them. Historians also know about these events via diaries, newspaper articles, and the records of the Continental Congress. Historians and students of history want to know what caused these events and what their consequences were.

Historians reconstruct the past according to an explanatory generalization, narrative, and a theme that are the result of piecing together many parts into a whole. After collecting, sorting, collating, organizing, and trying to make sense of a vast array of evidence, the historian then re-enacts the past in his own mind, which means to forge a narrative and explanation about what happened and the meaning of what happened. The historian’s task is to examine how the parts fit together to create a narrative of the past. At this point, the historian’s craft becomes an art. Thinking historically means dealing in generalizations, which requires seeing connections and bringing them together in a coherent whole.

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The Ethics of History

We turn now to the “why” of history, or what I have called the ethics of history. The first task and primary purpose of those who “do” history (i.e., the work of historians) is to pursue the truth about the past, and the primary purpose of those who study and teach history is, at least in part, to help make sense of the world in which we live by studying the movement from the past to the present. The past only has meaning in the present. Our concern in this third section is with the latter—with those who study and teach history.

Having come this far, we are compelled to ask, why do we study history? What is its value to us? What do we hope to get from it? Specifically, why do we in the present want to know the “what,” “how,” and “why” of the past if life always moves forward? To paraphrase Hillary Clinton, what difference does it make? Viewed critically, isn’t the past an anchor on our lives? Do we need history to live in the present? Alternatively, what happens to us if we’re liberated from our past? Why have all civilizations recorded their pasts in one way or another? Do we become unwitting slaves to it, or is knowledge of the past liberating? Not to be trite, but George Santayana’s now hackneyed line, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” should be offset by Gordon S. Wood’s riposte, “Those who remember the past are condemned to repeat it!”

Before I go further, I should say that I am not concerned here to examine if there is purpose—particularly moral purpose—in history, or if there are purposes in the historical process. It is not my goal to determine whether some kind of internal necessity is built into the metaphysics of history, or whether history is deterministically cyclical, moves in a straight line of progress, or is dialectical. That would require us to discover and reveal largely unseen meta-forces impelling and directing the past into the present and future. This is a large and difficult topic beyond the purview of this paper. Nor am I here to say that history is simply one damn thing after another. Instead, my aim focuses on a narrower question: what public purpose is to be served by the study of history? Of this much, I am certain: history is not and should not be an exercise in dilettantish antiquarianism or idle curiosity. The study, writing, and teaching of history serves a practical moral purpose for individuals and society, which is captured in this question: why do we want our children to be taught history? In fact, why do we engage in culture wars over the history that is taught to our children? The answer is simple: history matters, and it has always mattered.

History often begins as an exercise in self-knowledge both for individuals and for communities. It grows out a deep and abiding longing in the human soul to know where we came from. All of us are the products of our past, and history helps us to understand who and what we are. We are all curious about our origin story. Our cultural manners and mores and the forms and formalities of our political institutions are imprinted with the historical DNA of our national origins. Historical self-knowledge is therefore the first step to self-improvement both as individuals and as communities. From our study of the past, we can try to figure out how to be better in the present and future. We use the lamp of experience and history to illuminate the present and to guide us on our journey forward.

History can also teach us many other things about the human condition. For instance, it can teach us about: 1) human nature, particularly the role that reason and the passions play in our lives; 2) the role of perspective and time in human life (including death); 3) the role of cause and effect in human action; 4) the role of intended and unintended consequences in our lives; 5) the limitations and possibilities of life; 6) right and wrong, just and unjust, and good and bad; 7) heroism and villainy; and 7) what it means to love and honor the best or highest things.

History thus serves us as a kind of moral laboratory, not the kind where we do live experiments, but the kind where we can observe the nature of man under certain conditions, and the causes and consequences of human thought and action. Through the laboratory of history, we can test our theories about how to live in the present through the observation of how people lived in the past. The past is a testing ground where we can exercise and practice our moral reasoning and judgment. Through a study of history, we can observe virtue and vice, heroism and villainy, and success and failure. The pedagogic value of history is that we can there see the good, the bad, and the ugly and learn from them. We can see what ideas and actions did and did not work.

In these ways and more, I would like to suggest that a knowledge of history is a precondition for wisdom, and wisdom is a cardinal virtue, if not the architectonic virtue. To know where we have been helps us to know where we are, and both guide us in knowing where to go. In this way, history is a necessary partner of moral philosophy. They go hand in hand. Most of us are familiar with Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke’s 1735 statement in his Letters on the Study and Use of History, where he famously wrote, “History is philosophy teaching by examples.” By philosophy, Bolingbroke clearly meant moral philosophy.

Originally, the teaching of history to children was conceived as a form of moral instruction by which we teach children the what, how, and why of living free, just, and honorable lives. History and philosophy complement one another: history grounds abstract thought in lived reality, while philosophy draws upon and elevates experiences into timeless wisdom. They are two sides of the same coin: one moves from the general to the particular (i.e., philosophy teaching by examples), and the other from the particular to the general (i.e., history teaching by principles).

Lastly, I’d like to note that history as self-knowledge includes not only our lives as individuals but is most often defined as the self-knowledge of political communities. The goal is to create social memories of who we are and where we came from, and we typically do this to define who and what we are as a people or community. Conceived in this way, history is a social adhesive or a moral glue holding society together, and it is a source of wisdom from which we can draw to help solve the challenges of the present.

History also serves to induce patriotism, rightly understood. This is how history has been taught in virtually every human culture or nation from the beginning of time. If, as Americans, we believe that the United States is a good if not a remarkable country that has given us unique freedoms and opportunities to live and pursue our highest aspirations, then it behooves us to understand and show our appreciation for previous generations who built this nation. All that we have—our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our political institutions, our unique and diverse manners and mores, our cities, our manufacturing plants, our hospitals, our universities, our libraries, our rockets, our music and literature, and, most of all, our freedoms—was created for us by someone else. To those who dedicated their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to building and defending a free society we surely owe something in the form of gratitude. This is why we celebrate July 4^th or Memorial Day, and this is one important reason why we study our national past. There is nothing wrong with love of country, particularly if that country is uniquely good. Taught in this way, history is the principal vehicle by which to promote principled patriotism and enlightened citizenship. “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1816, “it expects what never was and never will be.”

Alternatively, we can teach the history of our past, as we mostly do now, by focusing not on the good but on the bad and ugly of American history. Those who believe that the United States of America is an inherently wicked nation will no doubt tell a different kind of story about America’s past. And of course, the question is: what story of America’s past will be told to the children? Given a choice, would you want America’s children to be taught the good, the bad, or the ugly of American history, particularly if the goal—and I can’t imagine anyone objecting to this goal—is to encourage them to be virtuous citizens of a free society and the very best that they can be as individuals? Do we want to teach our children to love or hate their history and ultimately themselves. Is it wise or nihilistic to teach children to hate their past and their ancestors’ past? These are serious questions in the year of America’s semiquincentennial.

In my view, there is a time and place for everything including the bad and the ugly, but when we’re talking about children, we must consider their psychological and moral needs. To teach children to resent and hate the past of their forefathers is, in my view, a form of cognitive child abuse. It creates crooked souls. The best kind of history for children is one that fires their imaginations and their ambitions with the hope of possibilities yet attained. Young people have a deep and abiding need to see and experience adventure, greatness and heroes. This is what they want and need. If given a choice, I’m willing to bet that the kids want to learn about the best and not the worst of which men and women are capable.

* I have reluctantly decided to temporarily halt my ongoing series of essays on the selfishness/selflessness problem. I have a few essays that I’d still like to write, but I simply don’t have the bandwidth right now to work on them. I will return to the series at some point in the near future. Promise.

**That said, I’m hoping to launch a new series of essays in the weeks ahead on the topic of marriage. I’m hearing a lot of talk right now that the Supreme Court may take up a case challenging the Court’s 2015 Obergefell decision on same-sex marriage.

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THE GOOD

OPENING AMERICA’S CONTINENTAL INTERIOR CAUSED A QUANTUM LEAP IN COMMERCE AND EMIGRATION TO THE TRANS-APPALACHIAN WEST: 200 YEARS AGO, THE ERIE CANAL OPENED AND AMERICA WAS NEVER THE SAME:

LESS (TAXATION) + LESS (REGULATION) + LESS (WELFARE) = BOOMING ECONOMY: America Is The World’s Hottest Economy.

I’M A PEACE-LOVING MAN AND DON’T LIKE WAR, BUT I ALSO KNOW THAT IT’S SOMETIMES NECESSARY. I also prefer that the good guys win in a world of bad guys. Ergo, it’s best to be prepared: The Coming Revolution in Warfare

MRS. REDNECK SAYS SHE’S GOING TO ORDER ONE FOR ME: Ancient practice of blowing through a conch shell could help treat dangerous snoring condition.

TAKE A STROLL THROUGH A CENTURY PLUS WORTH OF COMMERCIAL FLIGHT. Pretty cool: 15 fascinating photos of flying through the decades.

NOT MY IDEA OF A VACATION, BUT I’M IMPRESSED BY IT AS A TECHNOLOGICAL MARVEL: World’s largest cruise ship sets sail as industry nears record-breaking highs

MEDICINE/HEALTH ROUND-UP

• Vitamin D May Help Slow Aging, Study Finds.

• Heart Attacks May Be Infectious and Vaccines Could Prevent Them.

• This Over-the-Counter Vitamin B3 Supplement May Help Prevent Skin Cancer.

• Elon Musk’s Neuralink plans brain implant trial for speech impairments.

• A single blood test can measure how different parts of our bodies are aging.

• A 100-Year-Old Problem Solved? Scientists Discover How To Freeze Organs Without Cracking Them.

THERE ARE LAWS OF NATURE AND THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. MOREOVER, THEY CAN BE DISCOVERED AND UNDERSTOOD: Is life a form of computation?

NEWS YOU CAN USE: What happened before the Big Bang? Computational method may provide answers.

THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE LIVES! How to sail across the Indian Ocean: Everything you need to know.

OFF TO THE GYM I GO: Scientists Say Exercise May Actually Reverse Your Biological Age.

ARCHEOLOGY/ANTHROPOLOGY ROUNDUP

• Massive New Map Reveals 300,000 Km of Ancient Roman Roads.

• Roman warriors found stacked in ancient well suffered ‘humiliating’ fate after battle

• Metal detectorist uncovers gold ring linked to one of history’s most infamous plots

• Wisconsin lake reveals ancient vessels that predate Egyptian pyramids

• The cave where it happened: Denisova cavern’s congress of ancient peoples.

PROGRESS: Scientists sound alarm on DEI’s threat to academic freedom at ‘War on Science’ event.

WAS GEORGE WASHINGTON A FASCIST? We read history books we do not eat them.

ANYONE WITH THE SLIGHTEST AMOUNT OF REFINEMENT, TASTE, AND CULTURE KNOWS THAT SCOTTISH MEN SWEAR. That’s just a fact. Refinement, taste, and culture come with being culturally sensitive to cultural differences. Anyway, that’s my weak attempt at apologizing for all the swearing in this important video commentary. Disney’s Self-Inflicted “Boy Trouble”

SCIENCE ROUNDUP:

• Study shows evidence of habitable conditions on Saturn moon.

• It’s Official: Scientists Confirmed What Is Inside Our Moon.

• New Study Suggests Early Mars Hosted Conditions Suitable for Life.

• Scientists extract viable RNA from woolly mammoth remains.

• Kissing started 20 million years ago, long before humans existed.

LET’S HOPE SO, BUT I’M NOT HOLDING MY BREATH: Is This Finally the Dawning of the End of the Woke Corporate Era?

IT ALL STARTS WITH A SIMPLE QUESTION: WHAT IS MARRIAGE? Judge makes significant ruling for schools on ‘children’s book promoting same-sex marriage’

HEAL THYSELF: ‘The world is waking up’: Surveys show trans identification in ‘free-fall’ among young people

MORAL PROGRESS IN THE STATE THAT ONCE HANGED MEN AND WOMEN FOR BEING WITCHES: Health Centers In Massachusetts Suspend Transgender Care For Minors

EXCELLENT ESSAY FROM ROGER KIMBALL ON THE ALLEGED EVILS OF CAPITALISM: Capitalism’s critics cling to a mythic past, but the record shows the factory age ignited rising living standards, broader opportunity, and the modern prosperity we now take for granted.

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THE BAD

YES, IT’S REALLY THAT BAD: Top 20 Insanities DOGE revealed in 2025.

COMING TO A BLUE CITY NEAR YOU: 16 Dead in NYC From Warmth of Collectivism.

WE ALL KNEW THAT MARGARET THATCHER WAS RIGHT . . . THEY’RE ONLY JUST ADMITTING IT 40 YEARS LATER: German Chancellor Admits That Welfare State Is Running Out of Other People’s Money.

CALIFORNIA TURNED INTO ZIMBABWE SO SLOWLY THAT NO ONE NOTICED: ‘Stolen Land’: Gavin Newsom’s ‘Agricultural Equity’ Advisers Prepare Plan To Redistribute Farmland to Racial Minorities. California has ‘the responsibility’ to help ‘rebuild the wealth that was stolen,’ task force says.

PORTLAND TURNED INTO CALIFORNIA SO SLOWLY THAT NO ONE NOTICED: Reactionary, Neo-Confederate Portland.

UK WATCH:

• Londonistan and the Death of Tolerance.

• You Can’t Make This Up: UK Theater Cancels Showing of Free Speech Documentary.

• Britain’s Plan to Abolish Most Jury Trials Should Make Us Grateful for the Constitution.

PRETTY SURE THAT DOESN’T SOUND GOOD: Deep Beneath The Pacific Ocean, Earth’s Crust Is Tearing Itself Apart.

BETTER GET A PARKA: Climate scientists’ controversial claim Gulf Stream could be near collapse — predicting a new ice age.

I LIKE “NICE” BUT NOT SUICIDAL EMPATHY. They’re not the same thing: American civilization is being destroyed from within by the ‘Republic of Nice’

CULTURAL SEPPUKU: German Christmas market installs ‘anti-tank’ barriers meant to stop invading armies, public media cheers ‘creative’ solution.

CHINA WATCH:

• China’s Engineering State

• Three Chinese scholars at UMich charged with conspiring to smuggle biological materials into U.S.

• US Nuclear Bomber Base Shares Fence With Trailer Park Tied To Chinese Intel-Linked Fraudster

• China’s 1st reusable rocket test fires engines ahead of debut flight.

• How China Raced Ahead of the U.S. on Nuclear Power.

THIS MAY BE THE GREATEST SCANDAL OF OUR LIFETIMES: New Docs Show More Connections Between Wuhan Lab and U.S. Intelligence.

BUILT INTO THE WELFARE STATE IS A BOTTOMLESS HOLE OF CORRUPTION:

• Watchdog Warns Of Hundreds Of Millions In Medicaid Payments To Deceased Enrollees

• US Government Awards Nearly $200M In Health-Related Grants To Help Illegals

LIKE ALL WELFARE, USAID IS A FRAUD: Lies, Damn Lies, and USAID Lies.

THE PLAGUE COMES IN MANY DIFFERENT FORMS: The Death Rattle of Apocalyptic Environmentalism.

SOMETHING IS HAPPENING: Can the ‘Lost Generation’ be found?

• Related: Feminism Burned Down the Home—Now the West Is Shivering in the Dark

THIS IS WHAT IT’S COME TO. Turns out, the needs of young men—the so-called “Lost Generation”—are pretty simple: they want a wife, kids, a job, and a little respect every now and then. Is that too much to ask?

YOU DON’T WANT THIS, AND YET YOU SEEM POWERLESS TO STOP IT: How Islam Caused — and Is Again Causing — a Dark Age in Europe.

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THE UGLY

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE THEY SAID, BUT WHAT THEY GAVE US WAS QUACK SCIENCE AND QUACK MEDICINE: Did Dr. Spock’s parenting advice kill 60,000 babies?

THE DEEP STATE IS YOUR FRIEND—NOT! KASH PATEL DROPS COVID ORIGIN BOMBSHELL:

YES, IT WORKS SOMETHING LIKE THIS: The Left-Wing Terror Memeplex

I’LL BET YOU NEVER KNEW THIS WAS HAPPENING TO YOUR NATION AND TO YOUR CHILDREN: FBI Sees Dramatic Increase In Arrests Of ‘Nihilistic Violent Extremism,’ Individuals Targeting Children. There is a lot more to this story about which we need answers. For instance, we need to know more about the backgrounds of these of these two characters. Are they recent immigrants to this country? Did they go to university in the United States? If yes, which ones?

. . . and THE BEAUTIFUL

HERE IS ERNEST BARRIAS’S (1841-1905) stunningly beautiful polychromatic marble sculpture La Nature se dévoilant devant la Science (”Nature Unveiling Herself Before Science”), which was commissioned in 1889 to decorate the new Faculty of Medicine in Bordeaux. H/T to Kelsie Rose for bringing Barrias and his La Nature se dévoilant devant la Science to my attention.

Have a great week!

I would be grateful if you would share this post with your friends and encourage them to subscribe to The Redneck Intellectual.

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DUMB AND DUMBER (NO. 125)

K-12 EDITION

CORRUPT FROM TOP TO BOTTOM: Bombshell: Defending Ed Drops National Education Association Docs Detailing Radical LGBTQ Agenda.

THIS IS MIND NUMBINGLY BAD. #Just_Walk_Away: It’s now up to U.S. Supreme Court whether students can be forcibly indoctrinated with Islam

IF YOU LOVE YOUR CHILDREN, YOU MUST DO EVERYTHING IN YOUR POWER TO PREVENT THEM FROM RECEIVING THIS KIND OF RADICAL INDOCTRINATION. Ultimately, your only real choice is to #Just_Walk_Away: Top teachers union in hot water after unearthed training docs reveal radical plan

IF THERE ARE GOING TO BE GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS, THEN THEY SHOULD AT LEAST TEACH THE TRUTH ABOUT COMMUNISM: Florida OKs Plan To Teach Dangers Of Communism In K-12

YOU CAN ONLY PUSH ORDINARY PEOPLE AROUND SO MUCH BEFORE THEY REVOLT: Father furious after discovering state’s invasive sex survey for 11-year-olds

WE NEED IT NOW MORE THAN EVER: Classical liberal education: Scarce, embattled, essential

HERE WE GO AGAIN: Teacher with 8-week-old baby pleads guilty to having sex with her student, 15.

THIS IS JUST THE SURFACE LEVEL OF HOW BAD THINGS REALLY ARE: The Ideological Erosion of College Readiness.

ENDORSED: Why Marxism needs to be purged from our classrooms.

HIGHER ED EDITION

YOU SHOULD NOT THINK OF THIS AS THE EXCEPTION; IT’S THE RULE IN AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION. The rule may not apply in exactly this form around the country, but the underlying premise of the course is everywhere: University of Utah class explores ‘Black Trans Lesbian Marxists’ and radical literature.

GEE, WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CLUE? Americans are rightly waking up — much of higher education is now a scam.

THIS IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM. The government schools and the colleges have turned our children into sniveling brats : Nine in ten college students think ‘words can be violence’: survey.

WHY IS KENT STATE A SEGREGATIONIST UNIVERSITY? Kent State a cappella group bans white students from solo auditions.

MUST READ: The Political Causes of Higher Education’s Decline

DEFUND THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? University of MN Labels Whiteness a ‘Pandemic,’ Demands ‘Re-Education’.

WHAT’S WORSE IS THAT AMERICA’S UNIVERSITIES HAVE NO CLUE ABOUT HOW TO MAKE THEMSELVES RELEVANT AGAIN OR WORTH THE INVESTMENT: Poll: Majority says 4-year college degrees ‘not worth the investment’

THERE WILL BE MORE OF THIS—PROMISE: University of Delaware student arrested, police say he had machine gun and a plan to attack campus.

THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO THINK THIS WAY IN MOST AMERICAN ENGLISH DEPARTMENTS: Loyola Maryland English dept. says literature built on ‘white supremacy,’ may rename program.

TIP OF THE ICEBERG: Auburn University admissions officer facing allegations of race-based hiring resigns.

SUE AND SUE BIGLY: University of Utah student suspended for exposing professor’s history of anti-white racism.

PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION EDITION

AMERICA’S LAW SCHOOLS ARE ABOUT AS INTELLECTUAL CORRUPT AS A TYPICAL UNDERGRADUATE DEPARTMENT IN THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES: The Long Game in the Legal Academy.

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*What follows are a few observations and thoughts from a trip I took last week to give a talk at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. I started writing as events were unfolding in real time.

**The audio version is at the end for paid subscribers.

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Thursday, January 15, 2026:

I’m writing this essay at 36,000 feet on a flight from Atlanta to Kansas City. I had no intention of writing this essay when I boarded the plane, but sometimes life happens.

Something happened to me today that has both shaken me to the core and left me thinking about the nature of joy and suffering. I have nothing profound or important to say other than to share my experience with you and a few thoughts to go with it.

At the Atlanta airport this morning, I watched a middle-aged mother and father board our plane to Kansas City with their severely disabled son. As it was, father, son, and mother sat in the row directly right in front of me. The parents were in their mid-fifties and the son seemed to be in his mid-twenties. As far as I could tell, the son was a quadriplegic, non-verbal, and breathed through oxygen tubes. The mother sat by the window, the father in the aisle seat, and the son in the middle. I was sitting in the aisle seat behind them, so I could partially see the young man through the gap between his seat and his father’s.

Just after we took off, the son’s assisted breathing, which was clearly audible to me, became fast, heavy, and hard. During a moment of particularly turbulent breathing, I saw the mother reach for her son’s hand, and almost immediately his breathing slowed and softened. A simple touch of a mother’s hand lowered the son’s anxiety. Occasionally, the father would take a cloth and gently wipe his son’s brow, which was glistening with perspiration undoubtedly because of the heat generated by his heavy breathing. It seemed as though the son was using all his energy and strength just to breath.

I will admit to you that I was pained—deeply—by the whole scene. Never in my life have I witnessed a scene so tender, loving, and tragic. My sense of the son’s condition is that it was not the result of accident but was congenital. I suspect he has cerebral palsy.

My first thought was that what I had just witnessed as we were boarding and as I was now experiencing on the plane was part of a process that had begun hours earlier in the darkness of the early morning when this family awoke to begin their day’s journey. I imagined what it would have taken for these parents to gently pull their son out of his bed, dress and feed him, put him in their vehicle, drive to the airport, get him to the terminal and through security, get on the plane, fly for two-and-a-half hours constantly caring for his wellbeing, get off the plane, and then reverse the whole process for the rest of the day. Just one day in their lives would exhaust anyone.

It then occurred to me that these two loving parents had done some variation of what they were doing today every single day for the last 25 years or so. In other words, the parents had done some version of today for approximately the last 9,125 days. All this struck me like a thunderbolt. Frankly, the moment was emotionally overwhelming.

I then asked of myself the obvious question: could I do what these parents are doing? Could I do what they have done for 25 years. Could I do what they have done and are now doing for the rest of my life as they will be doing for the rest of their lives? Could I love and care for a child and then an adult child incapable of caring for him- or herself? It would surely mean that all that I have done in my life and loved doing, I almost certainly would not and could not have done. My life would have been radically different. My wife and I would have had to spend every single day of our lives thinking and worrying about and caring for our helpless child. Would my marriage have survived? God forbid, would I have abandoned my child to institutional care as have many parents?

After thinking through what it would mean to have a child with a severe disability, I recalled that moment when each my three (now adult) children were born. I don’t mean to speak for all fathers, but I suspect many have done some version of what I did. Each time a nurse put one of those helpless babies in my arms, I welled up with emotion, my eyes filling with tears, and I whispered to each one my children these words: “I will love you, and I will care for you, and I will protect you every day for the rest of my life.” And when I said it, I meant it. I meant it more than anything I had ever said in my life before. Other than my wedding vows, never have I said words that I meant with such ferocious intensity and commitment. I meant those words so much that they hurt—hard. In each of those three successive moments, I became a different person. Something about me was different and better than before. And now, 30, 28, and 26 years later, I can still feel the remnants of an emotion that will never leave me.

In those three moments and with those simple words, I experienced the obvious emotion of life-altering joy. The joy I felt each time was that all-too-human joy knowing that my wife and I had created new life, that my wife (the one who had once thought she might not want to have children) had carried and brought into the world three beautiful babies. Like all parents, I felt the earth-shattering joy that I was holding in my arms each time the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I felt the joy that I was now a father. I felt the joy that we would now be a family. I felt the joy that we would live and love together for the rest of our lives. Nothing in my life has or ever will be better than the three times I held those babies in my arms for the first time.

But I must also tell you that in that in each of those life-altering moments, I also experienced two other emotions very different from joy: anger and fear.

I felt anger because in an instant, when I made that pledge to each of my babies, I knew that my life would never be the same again. I knew that I had taken on a new role in life. As a father, I was now a protector and everything that entails. I knew that from that point forward my only real job in life was to protect my wife and children. But to be a protector assumes that there are forces in the world from which your children must be protected. As I write these words, I am reminded of that line from Cormack McCarthy’s novel The Road, when the father says to his son (which I paraphrase from memory), “if they touch you, I’ll kill them, because that’s my job.” When I first held each of my children in my arms, I didn’t say exactly those words to them or to myself, but they do express near perfectly what I felt in those three moments, and what I still feel today. (And I’m blessed now to feel the very same thing about my grandchildren.)

Make no mistake about it: that is my job—to protect and care for my children. No human law could stop me from doing whatever it took to keep them safe. I knew that instantaneously when I held each of my babies for the first time. There is something deeply primal that happens when a young man becomes a father (something that is and must be otherwise buried deep in one’s consciousness because of its ferocity), and I’m sure something similarly primal happens (but perhaps in a different way) to a young woman when she becomes a mother. I will also tell you that in that moment when I said those words to each of my babies and then in a millisecond experienced first joy and then anger, I felt something that scared me—something so powerful knowing I could live out McCarthy’s words (without hesitation or remorse) in order to protect my children.

But in each of the three most important moments of my life, I also felt a third emotion: a tinge of fear. The fear that any one of my children could suffer some unexpected malady beyond my ability to protect them that would change the course of their lives and mine. The ominous threat of a life-altering illness or accident is always lurking in the back of a parent’s mind. We fear the hand of fortune and tragedy. Suffering does not define the human condition, but we all know that fortune is a harsh mistress whose presence lurks in the dark corners of life. It’s an omnipresent force that we can never entirely shake. We all know that we will all, at some point in our lives, suffer the loss of loved ones. We can’t escape the pain and suffering that inevitably defines the human condition.

But for the grace of God (idiomatically speaking), I have not faced such tragedy, but I know the possibility is always there. In many ways, the emotion of fear is much more present in a parent’s life. Life is full of unexpected tragedy, and parents live in quiet fear for their children and for themselves. Tragedy is not man’s natural condition, but the possibility is always there, and parents fear it. Our radar is always on high alert with our children, particularly when they are young. We fear a toddler walking onto a busy street, we fear the sixteen-year-old who goes out at night with a car, and we fear the possibility of a child being diagnosed with cancer or some other life-threatening disease.

So, could I be as brave and loving as the two parents sitting in the row in front me?

I don’t know. I’d like to think so. To these two parents whom I don’t know and their son, I say thank you. Thank you for reminding me of the words I whispered to my children on the days they were born. Thank you for filling my eyes today with the same tears of joy, anger, and fear.

Sometimes it’s good to feel alive.

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*** Addendum.

Friday, January 16:

There is a sad addendum to my travels.

On my way home from Kansas, I had a two-hour layover in Atlanta. Sitting directly across from me was a slightly younger family than I had seen the day before: a mother and father in their late thirties, and what looked to be a ten-year-old girl in a wheelchair. The girl seemed to have little control of her arms and legs, and her fingers and wrists were curled and bent toward her forearms. The girl, who didn’t seem to have full control of her neck muscles either, would sit up for a few minutes and then slump over at the waist and her head would fall almost into her lap. She had the body control of a rag doll. The sitting up and then slumping over went on for almost an hour.

During that entire time, her parents, who were sitting to one side of her, said nothing to their daughter; indeed, they didn’t even bother look at her—not once! Instead, their own heads were bowed as they doom scrolled on their phones. Their daughter might as well have been sitting by herself without her parents, without anyone, lost in a sea of strangers. In that moment, I saw a girl with no one to love, care, or protect her. My anger mounted, but I felt helpless to do anything with her parents sitting right there. Eventually, an older woman, probably a grandmother, sat down beside the girl and gently put her granddaughters head on her shoulder to rest. And still the parents do nothing! At that moment, I felt nothing but an overwhelming sadness for this girl and total contempt for her parents.

As if her afflictions weren’t enough, this young girl seemingly does not have parents who love her enough to shoulder her suffering.

Sometimes it feels rotten to be alive!

***Second Addendum:

My last flight was moved to a different gate. I made my way to a new seat. I sat down beside a young man, probably in his late twenties. A few minutes later his equally young wife approached and dropped a beautiful baby boy on dad’s lap. This little baby boy squealed with delight. Dad immediately started bouncing his son on his thighs and Eskimo kissing this little baby boy. This is life as it should be.

Let us all “suffer the little children” to come into our lives with a love that is at once tender and ferocious.

Our children—all children—must know that life is beautiful. They deserve nothing less.

Have a great week!

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***The audio file for this essay is at the bottom.

“I swear by Christ—the greatest socialist in history.”—Hugo Chavez, Second Inauguration Speech, 2007

“Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.”—Mikhail Gorbachev, Daily Telegraph, 1992

This essay, along with the two previous essays (“Communism as Christian Heresy” and “The Death of God and the Birth of Socialism”), is an attempt to understand how and why so many Christians are or have become socialists over the course of the last century and a half. To repeat: this is simply a fact—a demonstrable fact that cannot and must not be evaded by those Christians who consider themselves to be politically conservative, libertarian, or classical liberal. More to the point, the important question that must be answered by conservative Christians is: what is the moral foundation of socialism and does that foundation have anything to do with Christianity?

Everything depends upon how we answer this question.

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ON THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS FROM COMMUNISM TO CHRISTIANITY

Consider another observable fact: the Christian convert to socialism and communism almost always begins with residual guilt toward the poor and resentment toward the wealthy that he or she was taught as a child in Sunday school. Exploiting Christian guilt is the specialty of the Left.

This fact more than any other explains why Republicans so often support the welfare State. Last year, Georgia Lieutenant Governor and Republican, Geoff Duncan, switched parties because, as he said, his Christian belief to love his neighbor was better achieved by supporting the policies of the socialist welfare State promoted by the Democrats. A decade earlier, former conservative congressman and Ohio Governor, John Kasich, lectured fellow Republicans imploring them to support expanding the welfare State because “when you die and get to the meeting with Saint Peter, he’s probably not going to ask you much about what you did about keeping government small. But he is going to ask you what you did for the poor. You better have a good answer.”

Weaponized guilt—Christian guilt—is and has been the source of the Left’s extraordinary psychological power and political success in advancing their cause. We can clearly see this in Marx’s first great disciple after Engels, Karl Kautsky (1854-1938), often called the “Pope of Marxism,” who demonstrated the ethical connections between Christianity and communism in his influential Foundations of Christianity (1908).

From a communist perspective, according to Kautsky, The Holy Bible’s New Testament teaches pity for the poor and resentment toward the rich. To be clear, both the communist and the Christian typically distinguish between the collective wealth of a nation, which they don’t oppose per se, and differentiating or the relative wealth of individuals, which they do oppose. Both the communist and the Christian would presumably be supportive of all men being wealthy (or all men being poor), but they oppose individuals who are wealthier than others. They would prefer all men to be poor than for some to be rich and some poor, and this is of course the reality in all communist nations throughout history. This means that what they really hate is inequality of wealth, and what they love is equality of wealth. The communist and the Christian assume that all differentiating wealth is the result of theft and exploitation. To be rich therefore is to be unjust, which means wicked. They want all men to be the same: either equally wealthy or equally poor. Differences or inequality are not to be tolerated. This is Kautsky’s major point in the Foundations of Christianity.

To support his claim, Kautsky makes much of the story of Lazarus in the Gospel according to St. Luke, which clearly states that the rich man, simply because he is rich (not because he’s unjust or uncharitable), goes to Hades, while the poor man, Lazarus, is taken by the angels to sit with Abraham in heaven simply because he is poor and suffering. The moral status of neither man is stated. Whether they are deserving of their condition is not stated, but the assumption is that neither is deserving. The rich man does not deserve his wealth, and the poor man does not deserve his poverty. Nothing is said about the rich man being a sinner or the poor man being a saint. In fact, it’s not even stated whether the rich man refused to feed Lazarus or even to allow him to eat scraps from the rich man’s table. Instead, the wealthy man is condemned solely because he is well off, and the poor man is praised simply because he is poor. When the rich man cries out to Abraham for help, he is told: “Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented (16:25).” It is not enough to demand of the wealthy man that he share; no, he must be punished and made to suffer by virtue of his having become wealthy with no concern for how his wealth was created. Nor are we to morally evaluate and judge Lazarus. This is worse than moral relativism. It is the moral inversion of good and bad.

The story of Lazarus is important for Kautsky because it demonstrates the similarity between the Christian and communist evaluations of the poor and rich and the relationship between the two. Both Christian and communist believe that the poor man is good because he is poor, and they believe the rich man is bad because he is rich. What that means, of course, is that the poor man must be rewarded simply because he is poor, and the rich man must be punished simply because he is rich (see Luke 6:20-25; Luke 16:19-25; James 5:1-6). In the twentieth century, Marx’s descendants found a quick and easy way to punish the rich: torture and then kill them.

The question of who can and cannot enter the earthly community being founded by Jesus (“the kingdom of God is at hand,” Mark 1:15) is clear: the poor may enter (see Luke 6:20) and the rich may not, or at least it is hard for them to do so. The only hope that the rich man has to pass through the gates of the New Jerusalem is to give his wealth voluntarily to the poor man. But even then, it may not be enough, for “beside all this, between us [those in heaven] and you [those in Hades] there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. (Luke 16:26).” This new society will be without socio-economic classes. All men shall be the same or at least relatively similar in terms of wealth.

The last line of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus clearly suggests that the teaching of Jesus would have been approved by “Moses and the prophets (Luke 16:31).” Indeed, the New Testament seems to echo the moral viewpoint of the Old Testament both in what it judges as wicked and praises as good. The alleged or assumed crimes of the wealthy (e.g., violence, fraud, and exploitation) are committed against the poor, the lame, the suffering, the widow, and the orphan who are innocent by virtue of their status (from the Old Testament, see Job 20:10, 18, 19, 24: 3, 6, 10, 11; Psalms 10:2, 14-15, 62:10, 74:19, 82:3-4, 86:1, 94:3, 6, 146:9; Isaiah 5:8, 52:3, 53:9, 58:7-12, 59:2-4, 65:2, 5, 13, 17-18, 25; Jeremiah 5:27-28, 6:6-7; Amos 3:10, 5:7, 11; Micah 2:1-2; and Habakkuk 1:1-3, 14-1). In Psalms 55:11, for instance, the idea of market transactions, which presuppose self-interest, private property, division of labor, competition, trade, and profit, is said to be anathema to a Godly man and a just society, for there “deceit and guile depart not from her streets [i.e., the market place].” In the Psalter, there are over 51 references to either the “poor,” the “needy,” the “lowly,” or the “indigent,” all of whom suffer at the hands of the wicked.

And who are the wicked?

We are told in Psalms that the wicked are those who are rich and who “persecute the poor” and who are “boasteth of his hearts desire, and blesseth the covetous.” The greedy, rich man’s “eyes privily set against the poor. He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net (Psalms 10:2-3, 8-9).” The bodies of the greedy rich men are “fat and sleek,” their “pride is their necklace; violence covers them are a garment,” and “they threaten oppression.” These men, says the Psalter, “are the wicked.” They are “always at ease” and they “increase in riches (Psalms 73:3-12).” One is here, of course, reminded of Marx’s discussion of Jews and capitalists in “On the Jewish Question,” where he describes them in morally derogatory terms as “hucksters.”

The Prophets of the Old Testament detest how the rich acquire and accumulate property, which can only be explained by the chicanery, exploitation, abuse, and violence perpetrated by the wealthy on the destitute. The Prophets’ motive in condemning the wealthy is their alleged knowledge of how and why the wealthy have committed an injustice. But the ultimate judgment against the rich is not that they committed a particular crime or sin to gain their wealth, but rather that they simply accumulated one thing after another. The wickedness of the wealthy consists in their having grown rich because they are selfish. And what shall be God’s punishment for the crime of accumulating riches? The answer, which appears first in Isaiah 5:9-1 and then most brutally in Micah 2:3, is annihilation: “Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks.” The Lord’s Prophets seek to bring into being a society where there are no differences of wealth between men, and this can only come about by eliminating self-interest from human nature and reconstituting it with a moral philosophy of universal self-sacrifice.

But we are still left wondering how the wealthy become rich if they have not lied, cheated, or stolen. What is the nature of their accumulated wealth?

For millennia, the rich have become wealthy because they have sold something for a price either higher than they either paid for it or produced it. In other words, they have made a profit.

And what does the Old Testament say about profit?

In the Book of Isaiah, the Prophet warns the powerful men of Israel who “are greedy dogs which can never have enough” and who “all look to their own way, every one for his gain (56:11). And in Proverbs 1:19 and 15:27, King Solomon says, “So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof,” and “He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house.” Profit seeking is morally wicked, according to the Old Testament, because it creates wealth differentiation, and, most importantly, it is motivated by greed or selfishness. This interpretation of the Old Testament is supported by the Church Fathers, including Saint Jerome, who said: “Avarice, the root of all evils, has such a hold on us that we do not consider the mouths of those who come to us, but the hands.”

Likewise, in the Apocryphal Book of Tobit (4:7), Tobit advises his son Tobias to “Give alms of thy goods to all that live justly; and turn not away thy face from any poor man: for so it shall come to pass that the face of the Lord shall not be turned away from thee.” Furthermore, the Old Testament disapproves of profit associated with commerce (Ecclesiasticus 27:1-2) and interest (see Exodus 22:44; Leviticus 25:36, 37, Deuteronomy 23:19, Ezekiel 18:8, 13, 17, 22:12, Psalms 15:15; and Proverbs 28:8).

And in the New Testament (James 5:1-6), wealth qua wealth is cursed for its own sake and condemned with no reason or evidence given to justify the judgment: “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.” Like modern Leftists today, James accuses the wealthy of crimes (e.g., fraud and murder) with no evidence. If—and I repeat if—James’s accusations are nothing more than false accusations (and why should a just person accept them on faith), then what he is really condemning is not only commerce and interest for profit but also production for profit. In other words, the origin of profits and wealth created by production of one kind or another is unjust and therefore immoral.

Later in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells a wealthy ruler he must sell all he has and turn over his wealth to the poor if is to receive eternal life in heaven. The wealthy ruler is not being asked to give some of his wealth to the poor but all of it. This is because, according to Jesus, it is difficult for those who have wealth to “enter into the kingdom of God!” The truth is, according to Jesus, that “it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God (Luke 18:24-25).” Note that the rich man is damned not because he has sinned but simply because he is rich, and the clear suggestion is that differentiating wealth is a sin per se. Otherwise, why condemn it without evidence of a crime?

In the end, Christianity forces men to make a choice: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon [riches, property, wealth].” (Matthew 6:24)” and of course 1 Timothy famously asserts that “the love of money is the root of all evil (6:10).” In fact, Jesus says that any man who “forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple (Luke:14:33).”

And then of course, there is Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus passes judgment on the poor and the rich:

Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. . . . But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep (Luke 6:20-25).

Returning to Karl Kautsky, we note that he highlighted these passages (and many more), to demonstrate to the Christians of his time that their principles share common features with those of the communists. He is teaching them that wealth and the enjoyment of one’s wealth are sins and therefore to be condemned, while also teaching them that poverty and suffering are virtues and therefore to be praised. According to Kautsky, the sufferings, deprivations, and humiliations suffered by the poor are thoroughly unmerited. The wealthy (i.e., the bourgeoisie) must therefore atone for their crimes against the poor, while the poor (i.e., the proletariat) shall pass through the needle’s eye on the way to God’s kingdom of eternal bliss.

And how, according to Jesus, can the wealthy seek or receive forgiveness for the sin of being wealthy and assuage their guilt? He tells them to “Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again (Luke 6:30).” Luke’s Jesus then strips men of all judgment, the kind of judgment that might ask how and why some men are wealthy and some are poor. Instead, the wealthy man is commanded to “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven (Luke 6:37).” In other words, it doesn’t matter if the wealthy man made his wealth through rationality, hard work, thrift, honesty, benevolence, and entrepreneurial skill, and nor does it matter if the poor man became poor because of his irrationality, laziness, profligacy, dishonesty, malevolence, and stupor. Such things are not to be known. The rich are sinners just because and the poor are saints just because. We are not to judge the ideas, motives, or actions of men. Instead, we are to accept them simply for what they are, which is good or bad simply based on the status of their wealth.

Not surprisingly, communists such as Kautsky loved Jesus’s teaching. They used it to manipulate and convert Christians to communism, which is precisely what happened starting in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and continued throughout the entirety of the twentieth century and now into the twenty-first. The journey from the poor to the proletariat, from the rich to the bourgeoisie, and from Christian to communist, was neither long nor arduous. Socialism is a guilt-relief program.

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CHRISTIAN COMMUNISM

Communism and Christianity also share a positive moral-political vision, and that vision is self-sacrificial, collectivist, and redistributionist in nature. In the Book of Luke, Jesus describes the terms, conditions and costs of discipleship by enunciating what individuals must sacrifice to be true followers of Christ. First, they must renounce—indeed, “hate”—their fathers, mothers, wives, children, brothers and sisters, and, most of all, they must give up and hate even their own lives (Luke 14:26). The total sacrifice of one’s life and loved ones is at the heart of Christian discipleship. Christian love, particularly as it is explained by St. John, means sacrifice. A disciple must, in the words of Jesus, “whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:33),” which means one’s property and loved ones. The followers of Jesus must, above all else, “deny” themselves (Matthew 16:24). In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the “perfect” follower of Jesus must sell his possessions and “give to the poor (Matthew 19:21, Mark 10:25, Luke 18:25).” Self-sacrifice is a Christian’s highest virtue and commandment. The sacrifice of self is a Christian’s highest duty.

Instead of loving people for selfish reasons (i.e., for the happiness and joy they give us), Christians are commanded by Jesus (his “new commandment” beyond God’s original ten) to “love one another (John 13:34),” which means to love indiscriminately as duty and a sacrifice. Christians are commanded to “Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again (Luke 6:30).” Thou shalt giveth and not receiveth. This is the indispensable condition for being a disciple of Christ. Indeed, so radical is Christ’s moral teaching that he commands us to love our enemies:

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth . . . Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; . . . Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:38, 43-44, 48)

It should be noted that Jesus’s “good tidings” or “good news” are not directed only to his Apostles or to monks in a monastery; instead, he spoke to any man, woman, or child that would listen and follow him. The Apostle Luke tells us that Jesus spoke to the “great multitudes with him.”

In the Old Testament, God speaks through Isaiah not only to the Babylonian exiled Israelites but to all men everywhere when he says, “Come buy wine and milk without money and without price.” This vision of a good society is replicated in Marx’s communist society. Marx envisioned an entirely marketless society controlled and directed from the top-down by an elite corps of social engineers, who replace God or the Apostles. These central planners determine production outputs (i.e., “From each according to his ability”), and then how goods and services are redistributed for the common good (i.e., “to each according to his needs”). The production and distribution of material goods in a Marxian society is thus guided by two principles: first, material goods are to be produced for direct use or use-value (i.e., need) only; second, material goods are to be redistributed for the benefit of the whole community. In the place of money, the State pays workers by giving them vouchers to be redeemed at government-owned stores so that its citizens will not have more material goods than they can use at any given time. After all, the enemy of being is having. Poverty is not simply the unfortunate result of Marxism—it is the goal.

In the Acts of the Apostles in The Holy Bible, Jesus’s disciples form a Christian collectivist society where property is shared between all men. The Apostles’ acts deal with “all that Jesus began both to do and teach, . . . after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen” (Acts I:1-2).” The Apostle Peter then reminded his brothers that they were to fulfill the teachings of Scripture. After the death and resurrection of Jesus, the 12 Apostles formed a community in Jerusalem based on Jesus’s conception of love, or agape, which taught all men to love their neighbor as themselves. To the Apostle’s community were added “about three thousand souls,” who “stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship (Acts 2: 41-42).”

But what did the principle of Christian love mean in practice?

This new Christian community, a form of primitive communism, had “all things common,” and they “sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need” (Acts 2:44-45).

This Christian community, formed and guided by agape, was “of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.” All the new members who joined the Apostle’s community sold their private property and turned all their wealth over to the Apostles (following Christ’s admonition to do so), who then “distributed to each as any had need (Acts 2:42-46, 3:32-35).” There was no private property in this ideal Christian community and all wealth was redistributed and shared by all. The moral intention of this new community was to replace a society in which there were rich and poor with a caring society in which all were the same. This was and is the model for how to live set by Jesus and his closest disciples.

Clearly drawing inspiration from the Apostle’s acts, Karl Marx sought to work out the meaning and challenges associated with the Apostles’ collectivist redistribution. In many ways the most revealing document in Marx’s oeuvre is his Critique of the Gotha Program published in 1875 in which he attempted to explain the moral parameters and mechanisms by which the new socialist society would redistribute the wealth of Peter to pay for Paul.

The challenge that Marx confronted was this: how to reconcile equality and inequality. In other words, Marx believed that men should be treated as equal in value (i.e., as the same), but he also recognized that there was an inequality of talents between men, and he furthermore recognized that some men have a greater capacity to produce more through their labor. Capitalism recognizes and rewards these differences leading to social, political, and economic inequality. Marx knew that the inequalities of abilities and capacities could never be eradicated, but his moral-political goal was equality by which he meant species-sameness. Thus, the question became: can men be made equal or the same? To that end, he shifted the standard of value from production to labor. In other words, workers would not be rewarded based on what they produced but rather on the amount of time that they labored. If two men in the same job both work the same number hours but one produces more than the other, they shall be rewarded equally for the equal time they worked and the equal labor they expended.

Time and labor become Marx’s standard of value. (This only makes sense, though, if both workers expend the same amount of labor in the same amount of time, which of course is never the case.) Marx then introduced a second standard of value by which to determine what is just and unjust in a community of sharing. The second standard is need. Marx recognized that the needs of a married man with eight children were unequal to the needs of a bachelor. If the bachelor’s time and labor working are the same as that of the married father of eight and if they are paid the same, there will be a profound inequality between the two workers, according to Marx. The bachelor will be much wealthier than the married father. If the bachelor is paid $100, then the married father is effectively receiving ten dollars by Marxian logic.

How does Marx solve this dilemma?

Almost as though it were paraphrased from The Bible, Marx described the communism’s moral-political ethic in language almost identical to that found in the Acts of the Apostles. In effect, Marx reinvented or revised the Christian ethic. He describes what a “co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production” that has advanced to the “higher phase of communist society” might look like and how it might work. This new communist society, the one that has restored man to his “species-being,” would take the following principle as its polestar: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” Ability will be reduced to needs, which are, ironically, unequal. This is the moral ideal of communist society. (A near identical use of the phrase was employed by Stalin in the 1936 Soviet Constitution.)

In the same way that Jesus and Christianity had Saul of Tarsus (i.e., St. Paul), so Marx and communism had Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. In his The State and Revolution (1918), Lenin argued (but of course only vaguely) that the transition from bourgeois man to the highest form of communist man requires a kind of spiritual purification. This requires that each man voluntarily work to the best of his ability (regardless of the return), and that each man accept only what he needs (regardless of his productivity). Such a moral-social system only works, of course, if men deny their “selfish” needs or wants and believe that to sacrifice their interests for the sake of others is their highest and most natural duty. Communist equality does not mean equality before the law; indeed, it is opposed to this bourgeois notion of equality. Instead, communist equality means equality of outcomes, and ultimately it means sameness regarding desires, needs, and ambitions. A new soul, indeed, a new man is needed. Human nature must be changed, and man’s original species-being must be restored. This is the communist new man envisioned by Marx and Lenin.

But how does the new communist man come into being?

The answer for Lenin is clear and simple: the dictatorship of the proletariat via the Bolshevik Party and its absolute and total control of the State. The first phase of communism will be achieved by what Lenin calls “accounting and control,” by which he means an accounting of how men work (i.e., their hours and effort) and by controlling how resources are distributed and redistributed.

All citizens are transformed into hired employees of the state, which consists of the armed workers. All citizens become employees and workers of a single countrywide state “syndicate”. All that is required is that they should work equally, do their proper share of work, and get equal pay; the accounting and control necessary for this have been simplified by capitalism to the utmost and reduced to the extraordinarily simple operations–which any literate person can perform–of supervising and recording, knowledge of the four rules of arithmetic, and issuing appropriate receipts.

Lenin’s ideal communist man is a working automaton stripped of his abilities, motivations, and dreams and is driven by what Lenin calls “‘factory’ discipline” to the lowest common denominator. He becomes a field cow who eats, drinks, and produces labor at someone else’s accounting whim and for the collective good.

The problem, of course, is that the voluntarism of ability leads inevitably to the coercion of ability because those with ability will stop producing, and the voluntarism of taking only what one needs leads inevitably to taking beyond what one needs, which in turn requires coercion to investigate one’s legitimate needs. The coercion required to force those of ability to produce more and the coercion required to force those inflating needs to take less can only be monitored and controlled by the State. Still, Marx and Lenin think that all this species-love will lead to the classes society where men and women will enjoy the universal brotherhood of man.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Given the chaos, destruction, murder, torture, and genocide committed by socialism and communism in practice, surely it is necessary that good men and woman stand up and denounce these evil ideologies and denounce them unequivocally. Socialism and communism are obviously evil in theory and practice, and those who support them are morally wicked. These ideologies and their proponents are morally wicked because they want to hurt people (literally)—and they do. Deep in the soul of every socialist is a psychological urge to punish those who have worked hard and succeeded in life. They want to use the coercive force of the State to bend the wills of those who claim they have a right to keep what they have earned. They want to use the coercive force of the State to steal from those who produce and to force them to labor for others—and they do.

In what moral universe is slavery not wrong, even if it’s just a little bit of slavery? And in what moral universe is it ok to guilt people to live their lives for the sake of someone else—someone else they don’t even know—because a third party (usually someone they don’t know) demanded they do so? All decent, thinking, and moral people know this wrong—deeply and profoundly wrong.

It is also imperative that we judge and condemn all other moral-political philosophies that are separated from socialism and communism by degree only or which serve (knowingly or unknowingly) the interests of socialism and communism. Socialism and communism are Christian problems, or at least they should be treated as problems for conservative, libertarian, and classical liberal Christians who oppose all forms of socialism.

Certain mainline Christian churches are deeply compromised by socialism and communism. As we now know, for many socialists and communists Christianity is the gateway drug to support government coerced redistribution. Consider, for instance, the so-called “Seven Sisters,” namely, those mainline Protestant denominations—e.g., the United Methodist Church (UMC), the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ (UCC), the American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA), and the Disciples of Christ (Christian Church)—all of which actively support socialism to one degree or another. And it’s no less true that the Catholic Church has a socialism problem in its ranks. The vast majority of American Christians, across all major churches, believe the government (i.e., you) has a moral responsibility to provide a social safety net for the poor. The primary debate amongst Christian churches is not whether the government should have this role, but how large that role should be. In other words, they’re debating which hairs to split.

It’s no longer good enough for my conservative, libertarian, and classical-liberal Christian friends to tell me that these churches do not represent “true” Christianity, and so therefore we needn’t worry that they are corrupting the Gospel because they’re not Christians. This is an evasion. It doesn’t work because the Christian socialists say they’re the true Christians. Christianity can’t be both pro-socialism and anti-socialism. It’s one or the other.

To my Christian friends, I leave you with these last words: the ball is now in your court.

Have a great week!

**Audio file of “When Marx Met Jesus.” (The nice Englishman who has done my recording thus far was automatically replaced today by my audio creation team with the voice of a nice American woman.)

THE GOOD

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THE ALWAYS GREAT MATT RIDLEY ON THE DISASTER THAT IS GOVERNMENT SCIENCE:

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ARCHEOLOGY/ANTHROPOLOGY ROUND UP:

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THREE CHEERS FOR THE BILLIONARIES. I SUPPORT BILLIONARIES SPENDING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO LIVE LONGER. One day it will be available for all people. This is not rocket science folks: The billionaire war against death: What happens to the rest of us when the rich stop planning to die?

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THE BAD

IRON LAW OF POLITICS: WHERE THERE IS A WELFARE STATE THERE WILL BE CORRUPTION: Fraud report: Fake people, phony SSNs had 100% success getting Obamacare subsidy

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF GOVERNMENT-ASSISTED SUICIDE? Canada reports record number of euthanasia deaths.

LEVIATHAN: Teaching ferrets to binge drink: Rand Paul’s annual Festivus report finds $1.6 TRILLION in government waste

THE WELFARE STATE, BY DEFINITION, GUARANTEES FRAUD ON A MASSIVE LEVEL:

• GAO Bombshell Reveals Obamacare Fraud on a Massive Scale.

• Damning Watchdog Report Reveals ‘Large-Scale Systemic Failures’ Leading to Obamacare Subsidy Fraud.

• THE SOMALI WELFARE FRAUD SCANDAL IS EVEN WORSE THAN YOU THINK

• Stephen Miller calls billion-dollar Minnesota welfare scam ‘single greatest theft of taxpayer dollars’ with dozens of Somali migrants convicted.

RACING TOWARD NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY: Washington’s Spending Train Is ‘Unstoppable.’

ARE DEMOGRAPHICS DESTINY? Birth rates are plummeting in Europe and in the United States. Do you think population collapse is a threat to civilization?

PULLING BACK THE CURTAIN: Clandestine Campaign To Defund ZeroHedge, The Federalist & Breitbart Traced To Kier Starmer Operation.

CULTURAL SUICIDE OR TREASON?

• Mamdani’s DSA Party pushing China propaganda in new monthly ‘political education’ seminars.

• Ex-New York State official accused of spying for China called Hochul ‘more obedient’ than Cuomo, trial reveals.

THE COVID CZARS DID THIS: ‘May be worse than anything we dare to imagine’: Redeeming the most troubled generation in American history

SUICIDAL EMPATHY IS A REAL THING: Yes, Europe’s civilization is being erased.

SURELY THE TIME HAS COME TO RETHINK THE WELFARE STATE:

• Welfare Fraud In Blue Cities: How Pervasive Is The Kleptocracy?

• Ga. Dem Representative Charged With Pandemic Fraud

• Maine becomes second Democrat-run state hit by accusations of widespread Somali fraud... with woke lawmaker giving vile answer to voter who asked him about it

• Two Georgia Men Sentenced In $17M Pandemic Scam

THOUGHTS, COMMENTS, REACTION? Preschool Propaganda: Study Finds 41% of Netflix Kids Shows Include LGBT Themes

CHINA WATCH:

• Re-orient your map to understand China’s view of the world.

• Chinese billionaires using US surrogates ‘to create mega-families with 100 children’.

• China Is The Most Free Market Economy On The Planet. For a given meaning of “free market” of course.

• Department Of Energy Inadvertently ‘Funding The Military Rise’ Of China: Report

WELFARE IS A RIGHT, OR DIDN’T YA KNOW? SNAP recipient goes viral: “What’s the point of food stamps if it’s just for real food?”

AND YOU WONDER WHY GEN Z AND LATE STAGE MILLENNIAL MEN ARE LEAVING MAINSTREAM POLITICAL PARTIES: Bombshell report: Companies did everything they could to avoid hiring “white millennial men” over the last decade.

UK WATCH:

• Just How Dystopian Can Starmer’s Britain Become?

• Just How Dystopian Can Starmer’s Britain Become? (Part 2)

• Family of Somalian ISIS Leader Living in Taxpayer-Funded Flat in Britain.

• If Britain’s political leadership were trying to destroy the country, what would they have done differently?

THE REAL CRIME IS THE CREATION OF THE WELFARE STATE THAT ALLOWED THIS SCAM TO HAPPEN: Alleged Minnesota fraud ringleader described as ‘a God’ in Somali-linked scam

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THE UGLY

THE TRUTH IS STARTING TO EMERGE, AND IT SHOWS GREAT BRITAIN’S MORAL COLLAPSE: The evil of the grooming gangs is finally being exposed.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS? More Than 200 House Dems Vote Against Bill Criminalizing Transgender Surgery For Minors

CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN THIS TO ME, PLEASE: 18,000 Known Terrorists Released Into US Under Biden: House Report

PLAYING GOD WITH CHILDREN . . . Puberty blocking is an act of neurological vandalism.

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. . . AND THE BEAUTIFUL

MUST THE BEAUTIFUL BRING JOY, OR CAN THE BEAUTIFUL INCLUDE THE PAINFULLY SAD?

Here is the world premiere of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings (1936) conducted by Arturo Toscanini and played by the NBC Symphony orchestra, which I think demonstrates that the latter is possible:

***HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!!