The Joy of Curmudgeonry

“I have had the misfortune to belong to the revolutionary epoch. . . . Fate has laid upon me in part the duty of restraining, so far as my p...

“There is no pre-established harmony between the furtherance of truth and the well-being of mankind.” [“Es gibt keine prästabilierte Harmoni...

“The Tiger is now lashing its tail and smashing its way through the harp”, [1] says Seamus Heaney in repugnance at the economism which has ...

When the all-or-nothing mentality is fixed upon exalting one thing above all others, it allows no criticism of the exaltation of that thing ...

It is pleasing in adolescence to be cynical, declaring, say, that love is simply a chemical imbalance. With adulthood comes a greater sobrie...

With all the hopeful remedies, liberal policies, humanistic prescriptions, and so on, that I hear mentioned everyday, I ask myself whether t...

“In sensitive times like these, we need helpful statements” — or lies, as they were called in less sensitive times.

In the view of evolutionary psychology, moral intuitions are simply the result of evolutionary adaptations to group-existence. No group can ...

One could write a book which might send every man who read it mad. It would have to be so persuasive in tone and argument as to strip him of...

There are several things that I find unfathomable: how mind might arise from matter; how an atom or an electron can be both a particle and a...

I am well enough versed in controversy to know that it is quite unlikely that one can mention peasants in a favourable manner without provok...

“On 1st January, the last German veteran of the First World War passed away . . . and to official Germany this is worth not one syllable.” [...

It strikes me that the turpitude of our politicians might come into starker relief if we were to view them as bad poets: pathetic and desper...

“The Greeks had a knowledge of human nature which we seem hardly able to achieve without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a ...

So far as I can recall, I have never read a word by William Buckley, who died the other day, but if it is true that he believed — as he is a...

On account of something I wrote a while ago, entitled “ Something Called Education ”, I have come to hostile notice. My criticisms have caus...