Earth vs. Twitter: This Time It’s Personal

Earth vs. Twitter: This Time It’s Personal

Twitter's suppression of conservative and libertarian users has incited an exodus of high profile figures from the embattled social network. It's been rightly said that Twitter, as a private sector corporation, is free to ostracize any user demographic it wants. Targeted users are just as free to leave the platform.…
February 27, 20162 Comments
Sad Puppies: Cognitive Dissonance Makes Our Enemies Oblivious

Sad Puppies: Cognitive Dissonance Makes Our Enemies Oblivious

Predictably, my recent post about how advances in media technology are driving the Sad Puppies phenomenon--and the hostile reactions of its detractors--drew hostile reactions from SP's detractors. I argued that new tribes of science fiction fans are forming around movies, video games, and eBooks; leaving the New York publishing establishment ever…
February 14, 20166 Comments
Sad Puppies: Lords Temporal and Spiritual

Sad Puppies: Lords Temporal and Spiritual

Last time, we talked about the drastic changes currently underway in sci-fi fandom, and the media that are driving those changes. People with their fingers on the pulse of fandom have observed that SF is becoming more tribalistic. They're right. Due to the dominance of movies, TV shows, video games,…
February 1, 20168 Comments
Fandom Is Dead. Long Live Fandom!

Fandom Is Dead. Long Live Fandom!

If you change the medium, you change the message. Philosopher of communication Marshall McLuhan argued persuasively that advances in media, regardless of content, can incite dramatic, culture-wide effects. A best selling print book can reach millions of people, but turn that book into a hit movie, and you increase its…
January 28, 2016
Hollywood’s Hate Mail to Its Own Audience

Hollywood’s Hate Mail to Its Own Audience

This intriguing article over at A.V. Club draws attention to the strange fact that James Cameron's 2009 opus Avatar, despite being the highest-grossing film ever made, has failed to leave a lasting mark on popular culture. That article is itself sourced from a Forbes piece by Scott Mendelson, the self-admitted "only…
January 7, 201616 Comments
Why Oligarchs Love Equality

Why Oligarchs Love Equality

In a perfect followup to my post on why Liberalism inevitably leads to tyranny, Murray Rothbard presents a devastating explanation for why egalitarianism is always championed by elitists. Rothbard begins by debunking the modern idea of equality. For 'equality' means 'sameness' — two entities are 'equal' if and only if…
December 21, 20155 Comments
There’s No Voting Our Way out of This

There’s No Voting Our Way out of This

A previous post on how the tide is turning against legacy media and its Leftist bias drew commenters who rightly observed that I offered no solutions for the current political crisis. Right up front, let me point out that I'm a schlock hack SF writer who is unqualified to propose…
December 18, 2015
New Media vs. Legacy Media: At the Turn of the Tide

New Media vs. Legacy Media: At the Turn of the Tide

A close relative recently confided in me that he's been struggling against a pervasive sense of despair. He's a faithful Christian and dedicated family man whose politics lean conservative. Yet his professional culture and the media he pays attention to bombard him with narratives contrary to his principles on a…
December 15, 2015
The Demonic Obsession of Cultural Marxists

The Demonic Obsession of Cultural Marxists

An interesting phenomenon, from my perspective as a theologian, is the number of people who've started asking if the cultural Marxists who seem hellbent on destroying Western civilization are possessed by demons. The question would have been laughed off as recently as five years ago, even among most Christians. But…
December 9, 20154 Comments

Dark Ages Now

John C. Wright offers a brilliant defense of the dishonestly much-maligned Dark Ages. The elite were not a different religion from the commons then, but agreed on the basics of the basic vision of a just life. Not every king was a good king, but there was a basic agreement…
November 27, 20152 Comments