Dear Reader,

It's not supposed to be like this.

I'm not just referring to the latest school shooting — itself a soul-deadening phrase: the latest school shooting.

I mean this whole mess. Bear with me.

We evolved to live in small bands of a dozen to a few dozen people. Our brains come pre-loaded with a numerical limit on the number of people we can really know (it's called "Dunbar's Number"). Fortunately, our brains are flexible and adaptive, which is why we're not still eating grubs and tubers. We can, therefore, learn to live in communities larger than those typical of a wandering band of hunter-gatherers.

But there are limits. Rousseau was among the first moderns to articulate an "ideal" society — one that laid down the foundations for many totalitarian projects to follow. Nonetheless, he believed that his ideal society could only work in a relatively small society (i.e., roughly the size of his beloved Geneva).

The Founders, likewise, believed that size matters. They didn't think freedom could work on a mass scale, run by ...

February 16 2018

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The People We Deserve Jonah Goldberg Dear Reader, It's not supposed to be like this. I'm not just referring to the latest school shooting — itself a soul-deadening phrase: the latest school shooting. I mean this whole mess. Bear with me. We evolved to live in small bands of a dozen to a few dozen people. Our brains come pre-loaded with a numerical limit on the number of people we can really know (it's called "Dunbar's Number"). Fortunately, our brains are flexible and adaptive, which is why we're not still eating grubs and tubers. We can, therefore, learn to live in communities larger than those typical of a wandering band of hunter-gatherers. But there are limits. Rousseau was among the first moderns to articulate an "ideal" society — one that laid down the foundations for many totalitarian projects to follow. Nonetheless, he believed that his ideal society could only work in a relatively small society (i.e., roughly the size of his beloved Geneva). The Founders, likewise, believed that size matters. They didn't think freedom could work on a mass scale, run by ... READ MORE Achieving a 355-Ship Navy 'Before This Decade Is Out' Jerry Hendrix In 1961 President John F. Kennedy challenged the nation with a great goal: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on... Don't Name Mass Shooters Mona Charen Don't Name Mass Shooters ADVERTISEMENT What's Oozing Out of Campuses Is Polluting Society Michael Barone In a 1989 article in The New Republic, Andrew Sullivan made what he called "a (conservative) case for gay marriage." Today same-sex marriage is legal everywhere in America, supported by... American Nationalists Are Awfully Quiet about Russia Jonah Goldberg I'm confused. These days, "nationalism" is all the rage on the right. I put it in quotes because there are a lot of different ideas of what nationalism means. Some of it is just rah-rah... Real Conservatives and Frederick Douglass Kevin D. Williamson Professor David Blight of Yale complains that modern conservatives and libertarians have coopted Frederick Douglass. Professor Blight, the author of a new book on Douglass, surely knows a great... A Gun-Control Measure Conservatives Should Consider David French To understand the American gun-control debate, you have to understand the fundamentally different starting positions of the two sides. Among conservatives, there is the broad belief that the... ADVERTISEMENT The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West Peter Cozzens "The most lucid and reliable history of the Indian Wars in recent memory." — Victor Davis Hanson, author of Carnage and Culture LEARN MORE Westminster Dog Show Valparaiso Bike Race ADVERTISEMENT Follow Us & Share 19 West 44th Street, Suite 1701, New York, NY, 10036, USA Your Preferences | Unsubscribe | Privacy View this e-mail in your browser.