Articles – Gus diZerega

Donald Trump, the Antchrist, and Power

Posted on September 12, 2024September 12, 2024 by Gus

I obviously do not believe Biblical prophecies have a divine source in any sense. At the same time, I am fascinated by the power coherent images and attitudes have to influence people’s perceptions and experiences, especially when shared by many … Read more

Getting Clear on Critical Race Theory

Posted on June 28, 2021June 28, 2021 by Gus

Gus diZerega

6/28/2021

As I have watched, read, and engaged in discussions about Critical Race Theory (CRT), I discovered people advocating it often use very different definitions. When this diversity is ignored, as it often is, debates can become acrimonious … Read more

NeoPaganism, Divine Immanence, and the Sacred Feminine

Posted on August 10, 2020December 16, 2022 by Gus

Introduction

This essay analyzes hotly contested issues within the contemporary American Pagan community. The arguments creating such discord rely on holding two contradictory positions at the same time. First, gender is socially, not biologically, defined. The second is there are … Read more

WORKING PAPER Outgrowing Methodological individualism: Emergence, spontaneous order, and civil society

Posted on July 8, 2020July 8, 2020 by Gus

working paper – comments encouraged.

“It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.”

Deng Xiaoping

“it depends in the end on what one’s definition of methodological individualism is.”

Bruce Caldwell

Abstract

Methodological … Read more

The troubling case of eugenics

Posted on June 11, 2020June 11, 2020 by Gus

In the late 1880s Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton advocated applying scientific insights to human reproduction. He label his proposed science “eugenics.” Galton argued that just as physical traits were obviously inherited, the same could be said for mental qualities. In … Read more

The Roots of Religious Nihilism

Posted on June 11, 2020June 11, 2020 by Gus

Medieval theologians wondered about the nature of Divinity as much as anyone. Arguing in opposition to St. Thomas Aquinas’s views that God did what was good because God was good, and so acted reasonably, the scholastic Duns Scotus claimed that … Read more

The Hypnosis of Texts

Posted on June 11, 2020June 11, 2020 by Gus

The medium we use for communication influences the nature of what we communicate. Because we communicate through these mediums, we are often unaware of how they shape what it is we communicate.

David Abram’s Spell of the Sensuous argued that … Read more

The Corporation, American Nihilism and Mafia Capitalism

Posted on June 11, 2020June 11, 2020 by Gus

The nihilism growing in America manifests in many ways, but three are particularly worrisome. Two, Neoconservatism and the religious right, will get chapters of their own because they reflect the major forms nihilism takes while battling the cultural and spiritual … Read more

The DDT Lie

Posted on June 11, 2020June 11, 2020 by Gus

When I was invited a few years ago to attend a meeting of the once classical liberal Mt. Pelerin Society in Salt Lake City I was surprised to hear little in the way of informed conversation about markets and ecologies. … Read more

The Pathology of NeoConservative ‘Manliness’

Posted on June 1, 2020December 19, 2020 by Gus

Harvey Mansfield is a leading Neoconservative scholar, as well as having been Bill Kristol’s mentor at Harvard. In 2006 Mansfield published Manliness to facilitate supposedly emasculated American males in regaining pride in their inner selves, while persuading emasculating American women … Read more