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Blog 3 Columns

  • Why Deep Thinkers Are Often Societal Outcasts

    Why Deep Thinkers Are Often Societal Outcasts0

    Since the beginning of Western societies, Socrates has been the prototypical intellectual inquisitor. Perhaps the “historical Socrates” has been difficult to pin down, but two things remain consistent among various accounts of this ancient thinker: 1) his claim to possess no true knowledge, and 2) his relentless examination of the knowledge claims of others.  For

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  • Like Thinking For Yourself? Think Again

    Like Thinking For Yourself? Think Again0

    Most of us want to think for ourselves. We respect those that do and try to do so ourselves. This may be the wrong way to go about it, says Alan Jacobs, professor of humanities at Baylor University. Jacobs makes three helpful points about thought and why it is so hard to do well in

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  • It’s Time to Privatize the United States Postal Service

    It’s Time to Privatize the United States Postal Service0

    Last week, the Trump administration unveiled a proposal to privatize the United States Postal Service (USPS). The plan comes as part of a broader initiative to trim and reorganize the federal government. And given its track record of waste and inefficiency, the USPS is a great place to start cutting the fat. “USPS’s current model is unsustainable.

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  • How We Discovered Three Poisonous Books in our University Library

    How We Discovered Three Poisonous Books in our University Library0

    Some may remember the deadly book of Aristotle that plays a vital part in the plot of Umberto Eco’s 1980 novel The Name of the Rose. Poisoned by a mad Benedictine monk, the book wreaks havoc in a 14th-century Italian monastery, killing all readers who happen to lick their fingers when turning the toxic pages.

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  • 3 Ways Milton Friedman Improved the Field of Economics

    3 Ways Milton Friedman Improved the Field of Economics0

    Milton Friedman is probably the most important free-market thinker of the twentieth century. His ideas in defense of capitalism and economic freedom had an enormous influence on the shift towards free-market policies that took place from the 1970s onwards. Countries like the UK, China, Chile, or Estonia followed the economic recipes contained in best sellers

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  • Why Aristotle Believed Common Goods Are More Divine than Private Goods

    Why Aristotle Believed Common Goods Are More Divine than Private Goods0

    In his famous Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle recognizes that we human beings aim at attaining a veritable panoply of goods.  This panoply includes goods as diverse as life, friends, comfortable shoes, a steak dinner, fine wine, health, the virtues, enough money to meet one’s needs, medicine when one is ill, sufficient exercise, and so forth.  All

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  • The Real Questions You Should Ask Your Economics Professor

    The Real Questions You Should Ask Your Economics Professor0

    “Students are commonly told that Jesus was amenable to socialism because he favored the sharing of wealth. But in fact, he taught personal responsibility, voluntary charity, and doing good from the heart, not from someone else’s wallet.” “The only thing new in the world,” President Harry Truman famously said, “is the history you do not

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  • Pascal on Why Living in the Present Is So Difficult (Yet so Important)

    Pascal on Why Living in the Present Is So Difficult (Yet so Important)0

    Philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) is most famous for “Pascal’s Wager,” the argument that human beings “bet” with their lives on the existence of God.  Yet Pascal’s celebrated book of philosophical musings Pensées (in which the Wager appears) is chock full of keen insights about the human condition—many as timely now as when they

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  • Alexander De Tocqueville on Why America Has No More Statesmen

    Alexander De Tocqueville on Why America Has No More Statesmen0

    When you think of American statesmen, you likely think of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln. They led America through periods of political chaos and enormous uncertainty when few others could.  Many long for statesmen of a similar type to lead America through its current challenges, but does America have any statesman left? Why does

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