Politics – 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

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 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

Strange Bedfellows: The Christian Right, Radical Islam, and the Hindu Right

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

Radical Islam easily finds common ground with the religious right on women’s issues. This point ultimately led Dinesh D’Souza to blame American cultural freedoms for the Islamic radicals’ legitimate dislike of us! D’Souza is an important conservative writer, biographer of … Read more

Neoconservatism’s Paradoxical Origins

Posted on May 29, 2020May 29, 2020 by Gus

Neoconservatism has a complex parentage, partly home grown and even more European. It originally grew out of tensions internal to many liberals who made up a crucial part of the Democratic coalition Franklin Roosevelt had created, a coalition that had … Read more

What is “Left Hayekianism”?

Posted on March 8, 2020March 8, 2020 by Gus

Words like “left” and “right” no longer have any clear meaning. But if there is a central theme, historically, people “on the left” have focused on issues of inequality of power. This has been interpreted in many ways, sometimes contradictorily, … Read more