He’s the main influence behind my new book, "The Conservative Soul," and I’m delighted that my 1989 doctoral dissertation on him, "Intimations Pursued," is going to be published later this year, as part of a series of books devoted to analyzing his thought. If Anglo-American conservatism is going to be revived in the twenty-first century, … Continue reading Discussing Oakeshott
A stimulating podcast debate about (IMHO) the greatest political philosopher of the last century here. I met one of the discussants, Ian Tregenza, at the recent Oakeshott conference. He knows his Oakeshott cold.
by Matthew Sitman One of the first questions I get when a person finds out I work at the Dish, and that Andrew is not just my boss but my friend, is about how we met. Unlike most of my generation, and probably most readers of this blog, I first encountered Andrew’s writing in his … Continue reading How I Met Andrew Sullivan
Perhaps the prevailing theme of this blog these past seven years has been the hope and promise of the Obama presidency. I’ve long insisted that his record will only be fully understood after eight years, that his role as the liberal Reagan of our time could not be glimpsed fully in real time – the … Continue reading The Long Game Of Barack Obama
Joe Jervis completely understands my decision to stop blogging: Man, do I get this. Anybody who does live news blogging knows all too well the havoc this kind of work can wreak upon your personal life. Sure, there’s great freedom to be able to work wherever you are and any time. But you also have to work … Continue reading A Blogger Breaks Free: Blog Reax
A reader writes: I’m know you’re getting a thousand-and-a-half of these emails today, but some bizarre, sentimental impulse compels me to write my own goodbye. It’s hard to see you go, and it certainly came as a shock: standing at the urinal yesterday between classes, bored out of my head and reading the Daily Dish … Continue reading A Blogger Breaks Free: Your Thoughts II
Reviewing Richard Evans’ Altered Pasts: Counterfactuals in History, Cass Sunstein argues that what-if scenarios aren’t, as E. P. Thompson put it, “unhistorical shit,” but rather an integral part of the historical enterprise: Here is another way to make the point. Social scientists test hypotheses. They might hypothesize, for example, that if people have to pay a small tax for … Continue reading Why What Almost Happened Matters
Last weekend we flagged philosopher Roger Scruton’s new book, How to Be a Conservative. In an interview he expands on his distinctive style of conservatism: Q: It struck me that the empirical side of your conservatism is also underpinned by what might be call a metaphysics of personhood, a conception of the nature of the … Continue reading Thinking Like A Conservative, Ctd
Above is an info-graphic from the Washington Post that visualizes the 815 civilian dead in Gaza (it’s updated day by day). The small red figures are children. 232 children have now died under the Israeli assault on Gaza, which originated in the outrage at the murder of three Israeli teens. I cede my time to … Continue reading The Best Of The Dish Today
Lovely sunny day pic.twitter.com/dyyEl3mU3R — Herdwick Shepherd (@herdyshepherd1) May 26, 2014 Noting that Michael Oakeshott’s classic essay, “On Being Conservative” (pdf) was published nearly sixty years ago, Aaron Taylor notes a few of the distinctive features of what Oakeshott described as “not a creed or a doctrine, but a disposition”: The real foes of conservatism are … Continue reading Toward A Conservatism Of Joy
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