To be pleased with novelty and imitation, to prefer good pictures to bad, harmony to harshness, and regular shape to distortion; to be gratified with accurate representation of human manners; to be interested in a detail of human adventures, and more...

Jason Kuznicki: Many point to Christianity as the historical force that challenged the ancient world’s inegalitarianism. There is quite a bit of truth to this, but it’s possible to push the case too far. Many ideas that are crucial to the modern...

This is the fourth part of a short story draft. Part I, Part II, Part III. Sixty years allows for great changes. Every Matriarch was once an Infanta, and this one was no exception. She had once been young, and famously beautiful, with golden hair and...

An interesting post by Bryan Caplan on what he calls 'ethical intuitionism'. I don't think he's using the word in quite the way philosophers would, although what he does give us could count as one kind of ethical intuitionism, depending on the...

This is the third part of a short-story draft. Part I, Part II. In a run-down, deserted part of the palace, fit only for mice and conspirators, a general and a sub-lieutenant met to have a quiet chat. "You are late," the general growled, obviously in...