James Poulos

James Poulos is Executive Editor of The American Mind, a publication of the Claremont Institute. He is the author of The Art of Being Free (St. Martin's Press, 2017), contributing editor of American Affairs, and a fellow at the Center for the Study of Digital Life.

|, , , , , , ,

Apollo 11 and the End of Cosmic Civilization

by |

David Bowie as Major Tom.
By the 1990s, space in the American imagination had become, outside the precincts of Trekkies and Jedi enthusiasts, fully dystopian.

|, , ,

The Technological Sources of Anti-Growth Politics

by |

Greta Thunberg speaks at the European Economic and Social Committee plenary session in Brussels, Belgium on February 21, 2019 (Alexandros Michailidis / Shutterstock.com).
Growth is only being demonized because it has been disenchanted, courtesy in part of digital technology.

|, , , , , ,

The Birth, and Digital Death, of the Electric Dream

by |

Those shaped by the televisual imagination, like author James Williams, were staggeringly naïve and optimistic at the time of social media’s advent.

|, , , ,

Reading America from the Outside

by |

Outsiders often see more about us than we do ourselves: James L. Nolan shows us what Tocqueville, Weber, Chesterton, and Qutb noticed.

|, , , , , ,

Life Finds A Way: Jurassic Park‘s Warning at 25

by |

Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park (1993). Image: Universal Pictures.
Jurassic Park's question remains: is technology subject to our control anymore?

|

Nihilism, Active and Passive

by |

In response to: The Frivolous Valley and Its Dreadful Conformity

Apple's Cupertino, California headquarters (image: Uladzik Kryhin / shutterstock.com)
Michael Anton is right that our politics and culture will eventually “begin to draw blood” from the gods of entertainment in Silicon Valley.

More Responses

The Needs of a Nationalist-Populist Ideology

by

Michael Anton has a fundamental problem with capitalism itself, and how it is practiced in 21st century America.

True Overlords Don’t Work This Hard

by

It’s creative destruction that rules in Silicon Valley, not tech arrogance—and that’s a good thing.

Michael Anton’s Rejoinder: Dear Avengers of the Free Market . . .

by

The techies want to reconstitute the ancien regime on silicon rather than soil. Tamny and Pethokoukis, whether they realize it or not, are helping.

|, , , , , , ,

An Unlikely Restoration of Memory: Why Dungeons & Dragons Matters

by |

Dungeons & Dragons (Blackregis/Shutterstock.com).
Many predicted that tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons would disappear, but this discounts the power of memory and the need for community.

|, , , ,

Automated Liberalism?

by |

Ravil Sayfullin / Shutterstock.com
The machinery of enlightenment, in short, requires of liberalism a new digital immune system.

About

Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

The opinions expressed on Law & Liberty are solely those of the contributors to the site and do not reflect the opinions of Liberty Fund.

© 2021 Liberty Fund, Inc.