C. S. Lewis’ witty and insightful criticisms of scientism, of the notion that the scientific enterprise alone can discover truth, that it can take the place of religious authority, of philosophical insight, and in fact of the whole tradition of humane wisdom, is well known.1 What has been less noted is the critique which he… Read More C.S. Lewis’ Critique of Scientific Knowledge by Thomas Storck
“The Russian intelligentsia produced a faith based upon a strange syllogism: Man is descended from the apes, therefore we must love one another.” — Vladimir Solovyev — On Lenin’s desk in the Kremlin there stood, for most of the years he worked there, a strange bronze statue of an ape gazing with an expression of… Read More Lenin, the Ape and the Skull
A new book takes on the throughline from the rise of 20th-century eugenics to Silicon Valley. JULIA MÉTRAUX, Mother Jones. “Elon Musk’s calls for a so-called “efficient” US government—including wanting to end the already endangered right to work from home, a disability accommodation for many—are less surprising when you view him as a techno-eugenicist. The eugenicists of the early 20th… Read More Eugenics Isn’t Dead—It’s Thriving in Tech
‘The West believes man’s destiny is prosperity and an abundance of goods. So does the Politburo.” –Whittaker Chambers “A communist spy himself, Chambers had a Christian conversion and declared that in 1937, he began “like Lazarus, the impossible return.” His return to the principles of freedom made him one of the most forceful anti-communists of… Read More Why Whittaker Chambers Matters
For his honest reporting on the Stalinist show trials Malcolm Muggeridge lost his job and was blacklisted for a time. The following is from 1979. (Drawing by a former Gulag prisoner) “The Great Liberal Death Wish” is a subject that I’ve given a lot of thought to and have written about, and it would be… Read More The Great Liberal Death Wish. Malcolm Muggeridge.
David Halberstam’s The Fifties: “Selling The American Way” “The Fifties is a sweeping social, political, economic, and cultural history of the 10 years that Halberstam regards as seminal in determining what our nation is today. Halberstam offers portraits of not only the titans of the age: Eisenhower, Dulles, Oppenheimer, MacArthur, Hoover, and Nixon; but also of… Read More Videodrome. When the Seven Deadly Sins of Excess Morphed Into “Progress”
Catholic Critique 