The Adventures of Shylock Holmes

From the distance of the present, especially for young people, the sexual morality of the past seems very odd.  In particular, the idea o...

At the risk of cementing my place as a curmudgeon, the National Conventions of the US political parties always struck me as thoroughly bizar...

It is always hazardous writing about coup attempts before everything is done and dusted, but the recent one in Turkey is notable in several...

To my mind, there is only one genuinely surprising thing about the recent  police shootings in Dallas , which is that they were carried out...

One of the most important statements of Buddhist philosophy is the Four Noble Truths . These were taught by the Buddha in the Dhammacakkappa...

Of all the problems facing western society, there is one question that I suspect will come to determine the answer to many of the rest. Wil...

Out of the things that distinguish neoreactionaries from conservatives, perhaps the most striking is the following: both are interested in w...

Out of the many oddities of the democratic process in the west, two points stand out. First, the average citizen has very little idea abou...

I once had a friend who was at least at the sub-clinical level of narcissism (by my amateur reckoning of the matter). He was very clever, an...

Discontinuities are interesting things. When small differences in inputs result in large differences in outputs, it can sometimes give hints...

I recently saw the musical 'Hamilton', which was an enjoyable depiction of American nostalgia for its own myths. That much isn't...

One of my minor hobbies is noticing small correlations in how people speak that reveal things about them. Some examples  here ,  here  and  ...

The attitude of non-Mormons to Mormonism usually tells you quite a lot about what else they value. And the critiques are well-rehearsed. ...