CATEGORY: POLITICS (4 min)
 

How Young Conservatives Can Topple Woke Ideology

There’s a way to counter Woke ideology, and this week’s Intercollegiate Review article by Avi Woolf explores that.

No, it doesn’t mean taking a #BigGovSucks approach. Neither does it mean trafficking in deliberately outrageous ideas to “own the libs.”

Sure, provocation gets attention, but it doesn’t create lasting, constructive change.

So how do you respond to an ideology that’s essentially a cult movement?

First, read Woolf’s article.

Then, if you’re on Twitter or Instagram, post your ideas on what his solution would look like in practice. Use the hashtag #thinklivefree so we can share your ideas with thousands of other intelligent students and scholars in next week’s newsletter.

Ready? Go.

CATEGORY: HISTORY (4 min)
 

Against History-as-Nightmare

Sun Tzu wrote, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”

Knowing your opponent is the first step in defeating him.

Yes, it’s infuriating to see statues of George Washington and Frederick Douglass knocked on their faces.

But as the retired prison doctor and psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple points out, it’s also a clue.

Why History-as-Nightmare Appeals More than History-as-Progress

In Law and Liberty, Dalrymple unpacks the psychological wounds driving progressivism.

As he shows:

1. Hell is more easily imagined than heaven
    
2. It’s harder to see progress . . . and the minute we see it, we take it for granted
    
3. The idea of progress isn’t as useful politically as the idea of “nightmare”

And finally, he explores the emotion that unites all three of these points into a powerful force.

If you want to know more about what you’re up against, don’t skip this one.

CATEGORY: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY (11 min)
 

A Thing Called Civilization

The Hebrew Bible. Arabian stories. Greek and Roman philosophy and languages. Ezra Pound’s translation of the Confucian Odes.

Western civilization has become almost taboo in academia, but it’s one of the most diverse and “comprehensive” civilizations ever known.

The great Sir Roger Scruton eloquently explores this idea further in today’s archive pull.