Coyote Christianity

In Andrew Wilson's terrific book, Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West, he tells the story of one of the most famous lines ever written in the English language. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,...

Generations

I have some skepticism when it comes to personality tests. They are often pseudo-scientific attempts to quantify the inherently unquantifiable. Imagine the absurdity of reducing an individual, in all of her wonderful complexity, to a number or a series of letters or a Hogwarts House. Personality tests are exemplifications of what Jacque Ellul called "technique"...

Sex at the End of the World

In Huxley's dystopian novel, Brave New World, sex has been completely removed from any traditional constraints. Sex literally has nothing to do with procreation or love. In fact, these things are seen as dangerous, backward, and uncivilized. Sex must be love-less, child-less, and meaning-less. Children are taught to experiment from a very young age in...

The New Civil Religion

Stick with me through this first part. I promise it's going somewhere. In the middle of the 18th century, Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote an important book on political philosophy called The Social Contract which still influences political theory today. Rousseau disagreed with many of the most popular political theories that went before him from...

What is a Woman?

I teach an introductory philosophy class. Don't tell my other classes, but it is my favorite. Two things that I repeat to my philosophy students are that 1) philosophy is relevant even though it may at times seem abstract or even absurd and 2) if you are going to do philosophy, you might be a...

Propaganda

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. A show designed specifically for the education of preschoolers had created a "Pride Parade Sing-a-Long" complete with drag queens, transgendered beavers, and lesbian alligators. It was clearly an example of activist indoctrination. The hope, I'm sure, was that very young children (who typically watch these shows without their...