Daniel Larison

Red Tories

thomas_jefferson_by_charles_willson_peale_1791 May 10, 2010

In the American context, one could very easily call Red Tories Jeffersonians, and this is where we see the predicament for Red Toryism in the United States.

Read the full article →

Localism And Cosmopolites

May 12, 2009

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.…
Remarking on Jeremy Beer’s article on meritocracy, Patrick Deneen concludes with this grim, but correct, observation:
This, in a microcosm, is a central paradox of our political system: our cosmopolite meritocrats theoretically admire localism but abhor the idea

Read the full article →

No Going Back…So Where Are We Going?

April 4, 2009

The idealism of the paleoconservative cause is simply too burdened by the idealism of its vision. Politics is not a time machine and we are not ever going to travel back to whichever pre-modern, small government existence that many paleos…

Read the full article →

Localism vs. Globalism

March 23, 2009

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.…
Mark Thompson has penned a challenging broadside against skeptics of free trade, including me, and he makes a number of arguments that deserve to be answered. There does not seem to me to be much to the argument

Read the full article →

Patrimony And Autonomy

March 5, 2009

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.…
I appreciated Professor Deneen’s discussion of the problem of free-riding, and I agree that ours is a precarious position, but I would suggest that it is also paradoxically the strongest position available inasmuch as we are always trying

Read the full article →

Prosperity, Myth and Liberty

March 4, 2009

E.D. Kain identifies a paradox in modern American conservatism that will be familiar to students of George Grant. Forty years ago, Grant wrote this in his essay, “In Defence of North America”:
It may be inded that, like most of…

Read the full article →

Communication

March 3, 2009

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.…
Via Derbyshire, this Terry Teachout column makes an important observation that relates back to Derbyshire’s criticism of the influence of talk radio and my post on community:
The information age offers something for anybody: Survivor for simpletons, The Sopranos

Read the full article →

Freedom Among Themselves

March 2, 2009

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.…
E.D. Kain had a fine quote from Wendell Berry that provides a good definition of community to start any discussion of place and limits:
A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared,

Read the full article →