American Fundamentals

June 20, 2018 – 4:51 pm
This entry is part 1 of 8 in the series Michael Anton, Thomas West, and the Founding

I’ve just read a remarkable review, by Michael Anton, of a new book by Thomas G. West, who is a professor at Hillsdale College. (You may know Michael Anton as ‘Publius Decius Mus’, the author of the celebrated essay “The Flight 93 Election” that argued for the necessity of electing Donald Trump in 2016.) Professor […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Reason and Philosophy, Politics, Books | Comments (5)

On The Founding: Questions From The Right Of The Right, Part 1

June 23, 2018 – 11:24 pm
This entry is part 2 of 8 in the series Michael Anton, Thomas West, and the Founding

In my previous post I linked to a review, by Michael Anton, of a new book on the American Founding by Thomas G. West of Hillsdale College. I have a keen interest in the Founding, and in particular I am, like nearly everyone in the “neoreactionary” community, dogged by the question of just where things […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Reason and Philosophy, Politics, Reaction | Comments (7)

Questions About The Founding, Part 2: A Reply From Michael Anton

June 26, 2018 – 12:30 am
This entry is part 3 of 8 in the series Michael Anton, Thomas West, and the Founding

My last two posts (here and here) were in response to an extensive review, by Michael Anton, of Thomas West’s new book on the American Founding, and to a comment by our reader Jacques. In Saturday’s post I laid out some questions that I thought the review, and Jacques’ comment, had raised. I did not […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Reason and Philosophy, Politics, Reaction | Comments (4)

Questions About The Founding, Part 3: Jacques Replies to Michael Anton

June 26, 2018 – 3:04 pm
This entry is part 4 of 8 in the series Michael Anton, Thomas West, and the Founding

Our commenter Jacques has replied, in an email to me, to Michael Anton’s response (published in our previous post). I am posting it below. Michael Anton (on the question of “natural rulers”): “One can raise all sorts of objections to this. For instance, if Trump is such a natural ruler, why did he lose the […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Reason and Philosophy, Politics, Reaction | Comments (11)

Questions About The Founding, Part 4

June 26, 2018 – 10:42 pm
This entry is part 5 of 8 in the series Michael Anton, Thomas West, and the Founding

Two posts ago we read Michael Anton’s emailed reply to a collection of questions I’d posted in Part 1 of this series. I mailed back a response, and received another reply in return. (There the correspondence stands, for the moment, as I’ve been traveling and working the past couple of days. I’d also like to […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Reason and Philosophy, Politics, Reaction | Comments (5)

Questions About The Founding, Part 5

June 28, 2018 – 7:14 pm
This entry is part 6 of 8 in the series Michael Anton, Thomas West, and the Founding

Bill Vallicella weighs in on the natural-rights question we’ve been discussing, here. We read: The problem is that the notion of a natural right is less than perspicuous. Part of what it means to say that a right is natural is that it is not conventional. We don’t have rights to life, liberty, and property […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Reason and Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Reaction | Comments (8)

Bronze Age Pervert: Response To Michael Anton

October 22, 2019 – 8:24 pm
This entry is part 7 of 8 in the series Michael Anton, Thomas West, and the Founding

A few weeks ago, as I recovered from a bad cold, I posted a review, by Michael Anton, of the book Bronze Age Mindset, by an unknown author writing as “Bronze Age Pervert” (BAP). At the time I said: The book is essentially a Nietzschean manifesto — though it describes itself not as a work […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Reaction | Comments (15)

Does Belief in Natural Law Require Belief In God?

November 1, 2019 – 10:23 pm
This entry is part 8 of 8 in the series Michael Anton, Thomas West, and the Founding

The Bronze Age Mindset discussion at The American Mind has become a symposium. Of particular interest to me at the moment is Dan DeCarlo’s entry, An Epic Pervert, because it takes on, albeit in passing, something that I’ve been stewing over for some time now: is the natural-law/natural-rights theory of the American Founding sustainable without […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Religion, Reaction | Comments (8)