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Scott Yenor Subscribe

Scott Yenor is a professor of political science at Boise State University. He is the author of the forthcoming Recovery of the Family (Baylor), and two other books: Family Politics: The Idea of Marriage in Modern Political Thought (Baylor, 2011) and Hume’s Humanity: The Philosophy of Common Life and Its Limits (Palgrave, 2016). He is also the editor of Reconstruction: Core Documents (Ashbrook, 2018).

February 21, 2020|Yuval Levin

A Time to Repeal and Replace

by Scott Yenor|

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., tears her copy of President Donald Trump's State of the Union address after he delivered it to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
No stable common ground has been found with the Left as they march through our institutions creating new, ever more radical and unhealthy ones.

October 17, 2019|Fyodor Dostoevsky, Identity Politics, Ideology, revolution, violence

Contending with Demons

by Scott Yenor|

Antifa protest march on August 4, 2018 in Portland, Oregon (Eric Crudup/Shutterstock.com).
Dostovesky suggests an appeal to the nation untouched with a concern for eternity itself will prove insufficient to defeat ideology.

October 9, 2019|

One Cheer for Prohibition

by Scott Yenor|

In response to: “Two Kaisers in the Same Grave”: Prohibition at 100

Interior of a crowded bar moments before midnight, June 30, 1919, when wartime prohibition went into effect, New York City. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-123253 (b&w film copy neg.)
What goes into one’s body can sometimes be an object for public concern; the question is when and how.

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Prohibition and the Constitution’s Limits

by Sean Beienburg

Prohibition may have been disastrous for America, but it reflected a deep respect for American constitutionalism we should envy today.

Prohibition, Protestant Unity, and Progress

by William J. Atto

The very people the nativists sought to Americanize or, failing that, oppress and restrict, were oftentimes the very ones who benefited from Prohibition.

Prohibition, Liberty, and Responsibility

by Richard Gamble

The question in 1919, and before and since, was whether such sweeping attempts at social control promoted responsible citizenship or undermined them.

April 18, 2019|Francis Fukuyama, Identity Politics

Fukuyama’s Hollow Nation-State

by Scott Yenor|

Francis Fukuyama (Image: Johns Hopkins University)
There is no guarantee that science, technology, liberal democracy, commercial greatness, or military strength will go on much longer in a liberal regime.

March 19, 2019|Harry M. Clor, Miller v. California, Obscenity and Public Morality, Roth v. United States

When Public Morality Lost Its Foothold: The Unheeded Wisdom of Harry Clor

by Scott Yenor|

The best arguments against deregulating obscenity were made at the most crucial time of policy change; but few ears heard them.

May 14, 2018|Eisenstadt v. Baird, Griswold v. Connecticut, Helen Alvare, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Putting Children’s Interests First in U.S. Family Law and Policy

Let’s Talk about Sex

by Scott Yenor|

A transpartisan consensus is forming around the importance of families to individual well-being, and the importance of genuine education to self-government.

March 19, 2018|

The Problem with the “Simple Principle” of Liberty

by Scott Yenor|

In response to: Can Libertarianism Be a Governing Philosophy?

Mock-up of a new, libertarian frontier: "sea-steading"
Communities may restrain liberty. These social features of human nature are as much a part of our mental furniture as the love of liberty—perhaps more so.

More Responses

No, But Classical Liberalism Can

by Nathan W. Schlueter

If libertarians are not prepared to accept the consequences of absolute non-aggression, they should seek a more plausible public philosophy.

Libertarianism: Just As Feasible As the Rest (and Just As Fragile)

by Nikolai G. Wenzel

Munger’s framework leaves us with hope grounded in realism.

Libertarianism: Michael Munger Responds to His Critics

by Michael C. Munger

My suggestion was that “directional” libertarians and classical liberals ally rather than question one another’s authenticity.

February 28, 2018|Boise State University, Feminism, implicit bias, Jonathan Haidt, leftism, Social Justice University, Transgenderism

Boise State University’s Blueprint for Social Justice

by Scott Yenor|

Scott Yenor offers a first-hand account of Boise State's transformation from a bastion of the liberal arts to a social justice university.

January 17, 2017|End of Sex and the Future of Human Reproduction, Henry T. Greely, in vitro fertilization, Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, stem cell technology

A Modest Proposal to Create a New Humanity

by Scott Yenor|

Henry T. Greely’s The End of Sex and the Future of Human Reproduction defends the idea that “Easy PGD” (Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis) will soon replace sexual reproduction as the primary way human beings enter the world. “Easy PGD” is a logical scientific development beyond in vitro fertilization (IVF). IVF involves fertilizing an egg harvested from a woman with a sperm and then placing the embryo into a uterus. “Difficult” PGD combines IVF with a genetic screen of the prospective embryos for attributes that parents would find desirable in their children and implanting the chosen embryo into the uterus. The “Easy” version…

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May 2, 2016|F.A. Hayek, Hayek's Modern Family, Meyer v. Nebraska, PIerce v. Society of Sisters, Steven Horwitz, Voltaire's Candide

Innovation and the Families of the Future

by Scott Yenor|

Steven Horwitz’s Hayek’s Modern Family: Classical Liberalism and the Evolution of Social Institutions uses the Austrian economist’s mode of analysis: marriage and the family are seen as the products of undirected environmental changes, products that arose to meet functions important to human survival and flourishing. By “modern family,” Horwitz means marriages that are the result of choice and affection, where each in the couple is equal and independent, where children are valued sentimentally, and where the family enjoys privacy from community and politics. For him, the “modern family” is an adaptation to changes in our environment brought about through efficient free-market…

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Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

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The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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Recent Posts

  • The Just Restraint of the Vicious

    For some contemporary criminal justice reformers, devotion to ideology leads to illogical conclusions about human nature and character change.
    by Gerard T. Mundy

  • Too Immature to be Punished?

    When I look back on my own life, I think I knew by the age of ten that one should not strangle old ladies in their beds.
    by Theodore Dalrymple

  • A Badge of Discrimination

    The British National Health Service has spoken: Wear the badge or declare yourself to be a bigot.
    by Theodore Dalrymple

  • A Judicial Takeover of Asylum Policy?

    Thuraissigiam threatens to make both the law and the facts in every petition for asylum—and there are thousands of them—a matter for the courts.
    by Thomas Ascik

  • The Environmental Uncertainty Principle

    By engaging in such flagrant projection, the Times has highlighted once again the problem with groupthink in the climate discussion.
    by Paul Schwennesen

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