Faustian Bargain, Part 1
This is a three-part series on developing the concept of compassionate conservativism to develop effective policies and solutions that address the problems of poverty and its threat to sustainable liberty and prosperity. Both the left and the right entered Faustian…
Operant Conditioning, Path Dependency and Societal Revolution, Part 3
Source: Discovering Neptune So how do dark philosophers (see Part 2) propagate the dark gospel and create the changes they seek? On the surface, if we only look at the racial aspects, we may reach some misleading and even harmful…
Reconstructing History, Part 10: Means, Motive, and Opportunity
Many of us have seen at least a few episodes of police procedurals and are familiar with the concept of “means, motive, and opportunity”. It is not a new concept. I remember reading about it as a kid in my…
Re-constructing History, Part 9: Is the Education Institution a Cult?
In 1992, there was a spate of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) allegations, many involving teachers. I bring this up not accuse teachers of SRA, but because the discussions of cults, False Memory Syndrome (FRM), and Recovered Memory (RM). FRM states…
Re-constructing History, Part 8: First, Do no Harm
The Hippocratic Oath enjoins the doctor to “first, do no harm”. I suspect most of the advocates of Social Justice movements think they do no harm and a great deal of good. I suspect that is not the case…
Reconstructing History, Part 7: Conflict, History, and the Future
Figure 1 The Punctured Equilibrium on the Path of History We come to the key aspect of why the education institution focuses on re-writing history. Education is the most important function in a republic in the Age of Knowledge.…
Reconstructing History, Part 6: Culture, History, and the Future
Culture is a difficult topic. For some, any discussion of culture, especially looking at them objectively for the results they produce, is a third rail. I discussed this at length in Part 5—Does Culture Matter? of the Maskirovka series. Part…
Reconstructing History, Part 5: The Education Institution and Creating History
Before we get too far into this discussion, let us look at the concept of “institution”. From an academic perspective, Ostrom and North provide two complementary definitions. Elinor Ostrom, in her path-breaking book, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of…
Reconstructing History, Part 4: Multiple Punctured Equilibriums
The re-creating history got very complicated, with a series of punctuated equilibriums (see Path Breaking Strategy, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3) before a new equilibrium could coalesce. The diagram above shows the complex series of events. This part…
Reconstructing History, Part 3: Social Justice Movements
There is clearly merit in some arguments of social justice warriors (SJW). American has a racist past. Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 was a dark stain on American liberty and freedom. But at least since Brown v. Board of Education…
