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February 27, 2020|Daniel Markovits, Education, elites, Equality, Meritocracy

Overcoming the Evils of Meritocracy

by David Lewis Schaefer|

Iron gate on the campus of Harvard University (Marcio Jose Bastos Silva/shutterstock.com)
Markovits alternates between acknowledging the opportunity for advancement for all and claiming that the system enables only “the rich” to win.

July 26, 2019|Education, Homeschooling, HSLDA, John Dewey, Progressivism

If Angels Educated Men

by Geoffrey Vaughan|

Image: Grundy Designs / Shutterstock.com
While there are many strong pedagogical reasons for homeschooling, protecting children from the ideology of the system is, itself, a good reason.

January 3, 2019|campus protests, Education, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ivan Illich, radicalism

Campus Unrest Is Really About Power, Not Justice

by Scott Beauchamp|

Harvard Memorial Hall (Jon Bilous/Shutterstock.com).
One suspects true radicals wouldn’t seek out the university at all but cultivate a learning community outside of it.

August 22, 2018|Common Core, Education, John Dewey, Nicholas Tampio

Contra Centralization of Our Children’s Education

by Jane Robbins|

(credit: robtek / Adobe Stock)
Is there anything beyond hating the New England Patriots that can unite Left and Right? One perhaps surprising answer is the issue of public education.

June 27, 2018|David Brooks, Education, I.Q. in the Meritocracy, Jacksonian democracy, Libertarians, licensing, Progressives, Special Interests, whigs

Why the American Whig Party Cannot Be Revived

by John O. McGinnis|

Kalafoto/Adobe Stock Images
David Brooks calls himself an American Whig, but there are good reasons a Whig restoration is impossible.

April 26, 2018|Big Data, C.P. Snow, City Journal, Corpus Linguistics, Education, sociobiology

Making Our Universities a Source of Universal Knowledge

by John O. McGinnis|

Dunster House, Harvard University (Jorge Salcedo/Shutterstock.com).
The distance between the humanities and sciences has grown wider since C.P. Snow discussed it six decades ago in "The Two Cultures." We need both.

February 14, 2018|Bryan Caplan, Education, Spence model

Signals and the Substance of Education

by James R. Rogers|

Rawpixel.com/shutterstock.com
For many people today, education simply signals their employability. By recognizing this, Bryan Caplan has made himself many enemies.

December 18, 2017|Citizenship, Common Law, culture, Education, Roger Scruton, Rule of Law, Tradition Project

Tradition, Culture, and Citizenship

by Sir Roger Scruton|

Statue of Richard the Lionheart on Old Palace Yard, outside the Palace of Westminster.
A society of ordered liberty is held together by high notions of tradition, culture, and citizenship.

July 14, 2017|Alasdair MacIntyre, C.S. Lewis, Education, Plato's Republic, The Abolition of Man, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

How Not to Become a Dragon

by Nathan W. Schlueter|

Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)
Read great stories aloud to your children. Over and over again. It’s the best way to keep dragons away, from your children, and from yourself.

May 5, 2016|Connecticut, Education, endowments, public good, Taxation

Don’t Tax University Endowments (Even if It Might Seem Like Rough Justice)

by John O. McGinnis|

It is hard to suppress schadenfreude as legislators offer proposals to tax the endowments of our elite universities. Their administrators and professors are overwhelmingly Democratic—indeed left-liberal Democrats. They regularly support candidates who want to raise taxes on for-profit corporations and individuals.

Even more piquantly, most of the taxes proposed would target only wealthy universities. Of course, soaking the rich is de rigueur for the left-liberal. And the most serious proposals are coming from blue states, like Connecticut, that are desperately seeking new sources of revenue as business and individuals flee the state’s already onerous taxation and its job killing regulations.

Nevertheless, these are bad ideas.

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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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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.
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