Category: Politics
Reading the Pan-Africanists: Kenneth Kaunda (II)
Here is Kaunda, still setting out what he means by “African Humanism,” in the opening chapter of A Humanist in Africa. Here he is arguing that there are certain values in traditional African culture (an admittedly tricky term which he doesn’t...
Reading the Pan-Africanists: Kenneth Kaunda (1)
For reasons I may explain later, I’m doing a bit of a deep dive on some pan-Africanist thinkers right now, currently working on Kenneth Kaunda but with plans to also return to Julius Nyerere and Kwame Nkrumah later, both of...
What I Saw at the Justice Summit
Last week I spent two days on the south side of Chicago attending the justice summit at Progressive Baptist Church, pastored by the Rev. Dr. Charlie Dates. These are some general observations from my time there, though I expect that...
Institutional Trust v Relational Trust
My colleague at Davenant, Justin Redemer: Relational trust will replace institutional trust in the next decade. — Justin Redemer (@j_redemer) May 27, 2022 This is correct. It is also extremely bad.
If Teddy Roosevelt is a Nationalist then “Nationalism” has No Meaning
Sen. Hawley in Compact: Roosevelt advocated a robust, realistic American nationalism. He believed in the nation-state, and in the American nation above all. He didn’t seek to outsource US sovereignty (like the liberals) or make all the world a client of...
Church Life and Social Collapse
Anne Helen Petersen recently featured a piece on her Substack written by a Peloton customer sharing her experience with the company. What’s most striking about the piece is the title, though it is helpful to read the whole thing to...
Opportunities for Renewal After the Sexual Revolution
Matt Yglesias has an astute piece noting some reasons for concern amongst progressives re: the long string of success their movement has enjoyed with regards to LGBT+ issues: We had a roughly 10-year period of political routs (starting with the...
Hating God
In his book on the transformation of sexuality in the Roman world brought about by Christianity, Kyle Harper observes that Christianity was experienced as a deeply liberating force by many in the empire. For Romans, the sexual energy of men...
Critical Race Theory Isn’t Going to Get You
In an old standup bit from a few years before his untimely death, Norm Macdonald mocked the way American media sometimes manufactures fear through their coverage of global affairs before memorably pivoting to the one country that really did scare him....