The Test of Compassion
There is growing talk of a gradual removal or relocation of the Palestinians. My guess is that it will not ultimately happen. In any case, however, it offers an excellent…
The Logic of Fertility
In discussions about fertility, I quite often encounter the view—even among intelligent, well-educated people—that in the past people were told having children was a good thing, so they had children.…
The Conservative Paradox
From the 1881 founding statement of the American magazine Freethinker: “The Freethinker is an anti-Christian organ, and must therefore be chiefly aggressive. It will wage relentless war against superstition in…
The New Sexual Divide
We still fail to appreciate just how revolutionary an invention the Enlightenment ideal of equality was, and how profoundly it transformed every sphere of life. Those changes concerned far more…
The Logic of Conspiracy
The conspiracy narrative surrounding 9/11 can be divided into three levels. The first level might go like this: The Israeli intelligence service was actually responsible. Mohamed Atta was in fact…
The Revolutionary Illusion
Last time, I wrote here about the tragedy of the left. It is a phenomenon in which a combination of passionate concern for the oppressed, various logical fallacies, and imprecise…