CULTURE

How “Effective Altruism” Turned Self-Sacrifice into a Pseudoscience

Writing in 1957, decades before Effective Altruism had a name or a giving pledge, Ayn Rand described altruism’s core demand: that need functions as “the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence.”

Home-Schooling Under Siege

Home-Schooling Under Siege

There’s nothing like stiff competition to bring out the worst in government. Nowhere does this prove more true than in the battle between home-schooling parents and public school bureaucrats. In Maryland, local prosecutors are moving forward with a...

Virginia State University Tyranny

If we had to single out one American institution that stands at the forefront of modern-day racial discrimination, deception and contempt for fundamental principles of liberty, it would be America’s universities. Under the euphemisms of affirmative action,...

Look Who’s Supporting School Choice Now!

Look Who’s Supporting School Choice Now!

No wonder the California Teachers Association was howling. Ray Haynes actually wanted them to practice what they preach. Haynes, a Republican state senator from California, recently introduced legislation in Sacramento that would have required public school teachers...

Fear of Failure

Fear of Failure

Fear of failure — you hear psychologists on “Oprah,” and elsewhere, talk about it all the time. What actually is it? Fear of failure is simply what it self-evidently appears to be. It is the fear of not achieving your goal or value in some context...

Grade Padding at Harvard University

Our colleges are losing touch with reality. The padded grades they’re giving out don’t help our students. Harvey C. Mansfield teaches political philosophy at Harvard University. And if there were a class in “how to get yourself into trouble with your...

The Best Therapy in the World

The Best Therapy in the World

People ask me all the time how they can develop proper tools of self-confidence. Allow me to save you a few steps. THERE IS NO BETTER TOOL OF SELF CONFIDENCE THAN COMING UP WITH A REALISTIC PLAN OF ACTION AND THEN FOLLOWING THROUGH ON IT, OVER A PERIOD OF MONTHS AND...

Hollywood’s War on Moralism

Is it possible to take a moral inventory of our culture — to see, in a single event, what, if anything, the most influential parts of our culture hold as the good? There is an important forum in which we take such an inventory every year at this time — and...

Philosophy: The Frivolous Discipline?

The death of a distinguished scientist or a leading novelist usually attracts public attention. But the recent death of perhaps the most celebrated figure in academic philosophy–Harvard’s Willard Van Orman Quine–attracted virtually none. This lack of...

Books: Stalin’s Apologist

Books: Stalin’s Apologist

By John Chamberlain Stalin’s Apologist is an apt title for S. J. Taylor’s absorbing story of Walter Duranty (Oxford University Press, 404 pages, $24.95 cloth), But whether Taylor’s subtitle of Walter Duranty, the New York Times’s Man in Moscow holds up in all its...

Santa Claus: The Anti-Christ

Santa Claus: The Anti-Christ

Santa Claus is also a symbol of good will, and thus is the appropriate holiday symbol of America, a country that, because of its material prosperity, can inspire good will in all of its citizens.”

Spontaneity versus Whim Worship

Spontaneity versus Whim Worship

What’s the fundamental difference between being a whim worshiper and being spontaneous? A whim worshipper acts on whatever urges move him, at the moment they first move him. He does not stop and use reason to evaluate what he’s doing. A spontaneous person...

UNICEF Kills the Little Children…

UNICEF Kills the Little Children…

“Breast is best.” No, it’s not the new slogan for Hooters restaurant. It’s the mantra of breast-feeding advocates who promote their cause with a cult-like fervor around the world. Their extremism must be condemned. I have nothing against...

How to Find Your Hero or Heroine

How to Find Your Hero or Heroine

With persistence, people almost always find the romantic partner they want. This is one of the surprising things I’ve learned from years of being a therapist. I spend countless hours talking with lonely people who wonder if they will ever find the romantic...

Why Children — and Adults — Love Harry Potter

A Review of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Book 1) by J. K. Rowling Just what is it about Harry Potter? He and his lovely author have incited a reading revolution at a time when reading has been considered on a perpetual decline. Why do children love him...

Politically Funded Education Enshrines Mediocrity

Politically Funded Education Enshrines Mediocrity

A new poll claims that a large majority of American parents are very happy with their child’s public school. This is certainly not my experience. I am a family therapist in Montgomery County, Maryland — the location of one of the “best” public...

School Choice Wars

School Choice Wars

All politicians come out 200 percent in favor of education, especially when an election is coming up. What that usually means is that they are prepared to dump more billions of taxpayer dollars down the bottomless pit of our failing public schools, whether or not that...

Pass A Law: Al Gore’s Solution to High School Dropouts

Pass A Law: Al Gore’s Solution to High School Dropouts

Al Gore promises that, if elected, he will make it illegal for all teens to drop out of high school before age 18. (Currently they may drop out at 16). In other words he wants to use the guns and threat of police force to physically force students to not drop out....

Faith Over Freedom

Faith Over Freedom

Vice presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman recently called for the United States “to reaffirm our faith and renew the dedication of our nation and ourselves to God and God’s purposes.”

Teacher’s Union Lies

Teacher’s Union Lies

Many people hear only one side of the story of our public schools, because only the teachers’ unions have both the incentives and the millions of dollars required to produce sustained advertising campaigns about education. These campaigns intensify during an...

Freedom in Education: Pro Choice or Pro Monopoly

Freedom in Education: Pro Choice or Pro Monopoly

It is amazing how many people who are “pro-choice” when it comes to abortion are against choice when it comes to education. Indeed, that is the official position of the Democratic Party. Despite Al Gore’s rhetoric at the Democrats’ convention...

The “Feel-Sorry-For-Me” Olympics

Throughout the Olympics, athletes from around the world who had worked their entire lives to reach the pinnacle of their abilities gave many great performances. Let us remember, celebrate, and reward them for their virtues and not for their suffering.

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