The Reasonableness of Christianity Blog

I recently read Yoram Hazony's book, Conservatism: A Rediscovery . While I disagree with the author's "National Conservatism" model for government and I question some of his history and theory, it was a book full of food for thought. There are some items that were not core aspects of the book but are worthy of some analysis. One of these items is Hazony's comments on epistemology, or how to identify truth. Remember that much of the book was a diatribe against rationalism and rationalists like John Locke that attempt to use reason to determine truth. (Hazony mistakenly and repeatedly accuses Locke of relying on "reason alone.") Given Hazony's fervent stance against rationalism, how does he propose that we determine what is true and good? Here is a quote from the book (my own transcript taken from the audiobook): We can say that a scheme of ideas is true and that it describes reality if it permits us to recognize the most significant causes operative...

With apologies, this post gets a little more into politics than past posts. I’ve always considered myself a conservative, but the terms liberal and conservative in American politics are becoming more and more confusing. In a recent back and forth discussion of dysgenics, Richard Cocks referred to me as a “liberal Christian” for objecting to the dehumanization of political opponents. I do in fact see myself as a “ classical liberal ,” which is probably what he was referring to, but I couldn’t help feeling that he was using the term as a pejorative. I also read this as part of a broader movement to expel the “classical liberal” conservatives like me from a new harder-hitting 21st century conservatism. In the new version of conservatism, the goal isn’t individual freedom and limiting the scope of government per se , but rather to obtain and use government power to grab back what has been lost in the culture wars, including the status of family and religion. At the heart of this movem...