One reader's rave

"Thanks for the newspaper with your book review. I can’t tell you how impressed I am with this terrific piece of writing. It is beautiful, complex, scholarly. Only sorry Mr. Freire cannot read it!" -- Ailene

Cassie Jaye, the day before I met her at the _Red Pill_ world premiere

Sunday, December 25, 2022

John Stuart Mill and Socialism

The fact that the famous utilitarian became socialist-minded in his later years deserves to become better known.

It came to my attention several years ago, ironically as a result of a reading suggestion by a friend who describes himself as an ex-Marxist. He recommended a book by Ira Berliner featuring his concepts of "positive" vs. "negative" liberty. I wasn't impressed by Berliner as a thinker; for one thing, he never offered a sufficiently clear definition of "positive liberty" for me to be clear on what it was he was disagreeing with. For another, I think it's possible to make the case for Marxist politics purely in terms of "negative" liberty anyway.

But I'm still glad I read the book, because it also featured a talk given in commemoration of Mill, and it was from this that I learned of his latter support for the socialist idea and was led to read his book Principles of Political Economy and Chapters on Socialism.

Worth noting here is that, even before he started favoring socialism, Mill was expressing support for the idea of an inheritance tax on everything beyond a "fair start" for each heir, pointing to the British aristocracy as an example of the decadence that excessive hereditary wealth can foster.

Matt McManus's article in Areo, "John Stuart Mill, Socialist?": https://areomagazine.com/2021/05/12/john-stuart-mill-socialist/

His talk with Ben Burgis about the article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0por0j-FKU

Wednesday, December 14, 2022

It should go without saying...

mobbing and threatening someone for their peacefully expressed opinion is never okay. But in this case, Roth's opinion was misrepresented to boot. He was specifically suggesting apps like Grindr should offer minors a different service from what they offer adults, whereas Musk implied the opposite.

https://nypost.com/2022/12/13/ex-twitter-exec-yoel-roth-forced-to-flee-home-amid-twitter-files-release/

Friday, December 02, 2022

I've yet to see anyone name a plausible psychological mechanism whereby those Balenciaga ads would cause harm to children. It's all moral panic -- but very effective brand advertising. Everyone's talking about them.