A Dozen-Plus Stimulants, Gathered for Your Edification and Inspiration . . .
Dear Intelligent American,
This day, the 6th of December, is assigned on the Calendar of Saints to Nicholas. Hard to believe that the man—for real, a 4th-century bishop and font of miracles and tales, the instigator of western civilization’s jolliest tradition, the poster boy for giving, a patron of numerous places and people (sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, toymakers, the unmarried)—was a Turk. Well, an Asian Minor. Born in the ancient city of Myra, now Demre, about a millennium ago his interred bones were dug up by a gaggle of brazen Italians and reburied in Bari, where . . . well, these are long stories. Complicated. The stuff of ongoing diplomacy, even.
Nicholas and his cultural offshoots—Santa Claus, Father Christmas, et al.—give hope more than expose hypocrisy of a culture engorged on irreligiosity and stuff. The figures, characters, and legends are a thread, bare but still unbroken, connecting to an innate goodness. Maybe, amongst the candies and treats the charitable bishop will leave in the shoes and stockings of little boys and girls, there is also grace, packaged mysteriously but when opened revealing a sense of something in creation that is good and large and beyond, that relocates the center of the universe from the self to Divine Instigator.
Here now, find this stocking which goes by the name Civil Thoughts stuffed with intellectual sweets and trinkets.
No Lumps of Coal for You!
1. At RealClear World, Christopher O’Dea warns that China’s strategic shipping-infrastructure incursions into South America—specifically in Peru—pose a danger to America. From the analysis:
Admiral Raymond Spruance, principal architect of the U.S. island-hopping campaign that won the Pacific Theater in World War II, once wrote that “a sound logistic plan is the foundation upon which a war operation should be based.” China has such a plan. The U.S. does not. China is conducting economic warfare against the West, using the containerized logistics system—an American invention—as its weapons platform.
The lead actor in China’s campaign is Cosco. Cosco operates as Beijing’s version of the Dutch East India Company, called the VOC after its name in Dutch. Chartered by the Dutch state to sail to the East Indies and the South China Sea and make treaties, seize territory, raise its own armed forces and secure the lucrative spice trade, the semiconductor chips of that time. In short, the VOC pioneered state capitalism.
Today Cosco spearheads Beijing’s seaborne expansion of Chinese state capitalism. Cosco began investing in Chancay in 2019 with a relatively modest $225 million outlay for a 60% stake in the port manager, Terminales Portuarios Chancay. Cosco’s partner, Peruvian mining company Volcan Compañía Minera holds the remaining share. Demonstrating that Beijing does not let ideology stand in the way of achieving its strategic goals, Cosco and Volcan signed the deal during the World Economic Forum in Davos.
2. At That Good Fight, Aaron Edwards sadly envisions how, in a secular dystopia, “assisted dying” will emerge as an industry. From the article:
By such a time, perhaps an entire economy will have emerged, flooded with “assistants” each competing to offer different products, technologies, and “death packages” to improve the quality of their service and the customer experience. The “customer” may once have been seen as the person “being assisted” to die. However, in time, it will have been decided it was “more prudent” to accept custom from those designated as the “assistants to the assisted” too. These people left behind are, after all, more directly affected by the outcome than the assisted person, who does not bear any further consequences once the assisted action is “completed“.
In the early days, these assistants will be restricted to close family members. But over time, given “the complexity of modern family arrangements”, it will eventually be decided that it makes sense to extend this option to wider family members, close friends, even acquaintances or colleagues, just so long as the appropriate formal procedures are adhered to. All must be “above board”. Especially legalised murder.
In time, agencies will emerge, offering additional clerical services to “ease the burden” of these complex bureaucratic procedures, which add “excessive emotional and administrative strain to these assistants-to-the-assisted”. After all, such people are already making very difficult decisions as it is, are they not? Through further lobbying, legislation will be tweaked and tweaked to better reflect the current practices and context. And so it will go, and so society will go, and so morality will go.
3. At The Saint Anselm Crier, John Fitzpatrick wonders if we have lost the art of conversation. From the piece:
But try walking across campus without spotting someone with their face buried deep in their screen–texting a parent, friend, or significant other. It’s impossible–they’re everywhere! Even when people are together physically, they remain isolated in the world of their phones. I’d be willing to wager that students would likely opt to text rather than have a face-to-face conversation. Even phone calls are considered “old-fashioned” these days.
They don’t seem to understand that real conversation matters. Looking someone in the eye and listening to their thoughts as they form them builds empathy, deep connections, and social skills. Text messages cannot replicate valuable skills such as active listening, reading body language, handling awkward pauses, and empathizing in real time. And then we wonder why young people have an especially hard time with personal growth and career success!
4. At The Wall Street Journal, William McGurn decries the ChiCom’s absurd prosecution of Jimmy Lai, the great Hong Kong champion of freedom. From the column:
The moderating nature of Jimmy’s voice shines through the testimony. Apple Daily staffers were forbidden to advocate for Hong Kong independence. Jimmy also opposed the violence by some of the younger protesters, recognizing immediately that it “scared away” the peaceful Hong Kong citizenry.
Likewise he denied that calls for “resistance” were really calls for violence. The core of the government’s case is that Jimmy is anti-China and anti-Hong Kong. As he’s made clear from the first day of his testimony, all his activities were pro-freedom and pro-Hong Kong.
Specifically, he was trying to hold China to its promises to honor the values and freedoms that transformed Hong Kong from a barren rock into a global center for trade and finance. On the stand, he listed these Hong Kong values: “rule of law, freedom, pursuit of democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly.” Apple Daily, he said, “aligned” itself with them.
5. At National Review, the editors draw attention to an important new study that shows DEI fosters . . . intolerance. From the editorial:
While DEI was celebrated, its opponents realized that it is a dangerous ideology. Some supposedly “equitable” policies have been clear examples of illegal discrimination, while the efforts to be “inclusive” have had disastrous consequences, particularly for single-sex spaces. Yet some of DEI’s terrible effects have more subtly eroded our social fabric: Most, if not all, DEI-themed trainings promote a victimhood mentality by organizing society into a hierarchy of “oppressor” and “oppressed” on the basis of immutable traits, then demonize anyone who is supposedly sitting comfortably atop the totem pole. Regrettably, anyone who expressed even mild objections to DEI could be branded as a reprehensible bigot who needed immediate reeducation, thereby creating a demand for even more progressive-indoctrination sessions.
Now, a compelling new study confirms that DEI fosters racial and group animosity, not tolerance.
The study released on Monday by Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and Rutgers University Social Perception Lab has devastating but unsurprising results: Across the three experiments, the researchers found that participants exposed to DEI materials were more likely to perceive prejudice where none existed and were more willing to punish the perceived perpetrators. Even worse, the participants who read DEI materials focused on caste were more likely to agree with Hitler quotes that substituted “Jew” with “Brahmin,” the top of the hierarchy group in the Indian caste system. The study found that “participants exposed to the DEI content were markedly more likely to endorse Hitler’s demonization statements, agreeing that Brahmins are ‘parasites’ (+35.4%), ‘viruses’ (+33.8%), and ‘the devil personified’ (+27.1%).”
6. More NR: Frank Filocomo warns about the detriments of loneliness. From the piece:
The study—of, might I add, unusual breadth, with data from over 600,000 people—found that “feeling lonely increased risk for dementia by 31 percent.”
Additionally, loneliness increased the risk for cognitive impairment by 15 percent.
These data should shock you.
Martina Luchetti, one of the study’s authors, told Meeri Kim in an interview for the Washington Post that “loneliness is associated with multiple cognitive outcomes besides the endpoint of dementia.”
Many, however, have articulated ways in which individuals can ameliorate their feelings of loneliness. In that same Washington Post article, Kim interviewed NYU Langone neurologist Joel Salinas, who remarked that “we may not yet have a cure for Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia, but we do have a cure for loneliness.”
7. At Political Questions, John Yoo and Steven Hayward are in the midst of a friendly, multi-part debate (also involving Linda Denno) on the priority of natural law over legal positivism. The entire back-and-forth is worth the read . . . here, Professor Yoo returns the serve. From the piece:
Steve and Linda believe that their moral views, which they call the natural law, must come first, and the laws as written come second. They believe that judges, lawyers, and citizens must bend the second to comply with the first, even to the point where written law which is inconsistent with their moral views are no laws at all. They invoke the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln for these propositions, at least at those points during their lectures when I was awake.
This could only be true if a) they are utterly certain that their moral views are the correct ones; and b) they have no problem imposing their moral views upon their fellow citizens, even if a vast majority of them believe differently.
I think this is at odds with our constitutional system. Our Constitution sets out a system for making laws; it does not establish a specific moral view for our society. That is not to say that the Framers were not mostly, if not entirely, Christians who believed in natural law (there being no competing schools of moral philosophy in existence at this time, unlike today). But they established a freedom of speech, a freedom to exercise religion, and a prohibition on established churches, rather than declaring in the Constitution a specific moral code (unlike the Code of Hammurabi or the Ten Commandments, which Steve actually cited in class as authority for his right to interpret the Constitution along his moral lines). Most of the Constitution’s provisions are protections for process and rights to due process and equal treatment. It leaves up to the people, acting through legislation, the decision on most life and death issues (such as the death penalty, euthanasia, and most of the issues of the criminal law).
8. At Discourse, eduguru Bruno Manno mounts the barricades on behalf of earn-and-learn apprenticeships. From the piece:
On the other hand, the American public now has a more positive view of earn-and-learn apprenticeship pathways to jobs and success. More than 9 out of 10 (92%) view apprenticeships favorably, while more than 6 out of 10 (62%) say apprenticeships make people more employable than going to college. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of working-class voters prefer apprenticeships and career pathway programs to help them acquire skills, rather than other options such as strengthening labor unions (15%) or forgiving student loans (11%).
When parents are asked to choose between a full-tuition college scholarship for their children and a three-year apprenticeship leading to a good job, nearly 6 out of 10 (56%) opt for apprenticeships. And almost two-thirds of Gen Z high schoolers say post-high school learning should be on the job through internships or apprenticeships.
Americans want K-12 schools, colleges, employers and other stakeholders to think differently about pathways to jobs and success. The goal should no longer be “college for all” but opportunity pluralism, where many pathways lead to human flourishing.
9. At The Spectator World, Teresa Mull praises—and worries about—America’s special charitable ways. From the article:
Though the number of dollars going toward charity is high, the number of people shelling it out is decreasing. In October 2024, Giving USA reported that the “number of dollars and hours given to nonprofits has gone up, but the number of donors and volunteers has gone down.”
So the rich get richer and give more to charity while the rest of us donate and volunteer less, and, presumably, rely more on the nonprofit organizations funded by the wealthy? Sounds a little dismal on the surface, but consider the upside: the more people rely on the generosity of their neighbors, the less they’ll rely on Big Brother, right?
Government could, however, have something to do with all this charitable giving. Amir Pasic, dean at the school of philanthropy at Indiana University, has noted, “There’s a different cultural approach to philanthropy in the US. We have a tax system that supports it; public institutions that celebrate it; and educational, social and cultural organizations that require it to thrive. It’s part of our expanded understanding of what it means to be American.”
10. At Quillette, the great cultural commentator Heather Mac Donald takes on Yale professor David Blight for his public assessment of academia and the recent elections and finds it most wanting. From the piece:
For further local insight into “why ‘they’ hate us,” Blight could usefully ponder the mistreatment of Yale sociologist Nicholas Christakis in 2015. Christakis’s wife had suggested that Yale’s students could choose their own Halloween costumes, free from oversight by Yale’s diversity bureaucrats. For defending his wife from the deluge of outrage that followed, Christakis was denounced as a racist by a crowd of Yale students. He was jeopardising the safety of Yale’s minority members, they screamed. In response, the university’s then-president Peter Salovey conferred a racial-justice prize on two leaders of the nearly three-hour abuse session and increased Yale’s already princely expenditures on racially coded academic programs.
Blight might ask how Yale’s students became so convinced of their own fragility and so confident in their right to be swaddled in conforming views. Yale’s law students, like law students everywhere, periodically erupt in tantrums if the local Federalist Society chapter invites a speaker who has ever taken a position that contravenes progressive dogma. Blight is fulsome about academia’s commitment to justice and the rule of law, but campus diversity bureaucrats have stripped due-process protections from male students accused of sexual assault. During Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 Supreme Court nomination hearings in the Senate, Yale’s students pledged “Solidarity with Survivors,” a mantra that implicitly contravenes the presumption of innocence.
11. At Plough Quarterly, Wayne A. Ewing considers the consequences of caring for those with dementia, and sees that in the darkness there is still a companion. From the article:
Again, a family member unwittingly came to my aid. At the urging of my adult sons, Ann had eventually been admitted to an Alzheimer’s care facility in a nearby community, where she peacefully spent the remaining months of her life. While there, one bright summer day, my four-year-old granddaughter came with me for a visit with her grandmother. Lisa had been there before, but always with her parents, uncles, and aunt. This was her first time on her own, just with me. At that time, Ann had withdrawn into the silence of the deeply demented; her gaze was always into the middle distance, with no present focus. But as we walked around the duck pond at the facility, Lisa, holding her grandmother’s left hand, leaned across her and said to me, “Grandpa, would you please go away? I want my own time with Granny.” I led them to a bench by the pond and, assured that they were safely situated, quietly retreated some distance from them.
This is what I saw: Lisa pranced and danced in front of her Granny, showing off her colorful hair bows and prattling away. She held her Granny’s face in her little hands so that she could look at her directly and boldly. She then crawled onto her Granny’s lap and curled up around her, embracing her gently around her neck. Ann glowed, she smiled, she had a radiance about her I had not seen for over a year.
12. At First Things, Bradley “Double B” Birzer reflects on the Mayflower Compact and finds Thanksgiving stuffed with audacity. From the piece:
This document—like the Declaration of Independence—demands frequent re-reading, if only to remind us that men and women can be free and can order their own lives without the interference of their “betters.” To be audacious is to be bold in the face of authority, but this particularly Christian bravery sought to harmonize obedience to the one true source of authority with self-governance. And what makes this truly special is that these were ordinary men.
And, of course, the following year—a harrowing one for the few survivors—the Pilgrims famously met with their Native American allies to give thanks. Of the 102 passengers, half died before that meal. What could be more wonderful or audacious than thanking our God for all he has given us, even in the midst of our sorrows?
To be sure, the history of Thanksgiving is anything but simple, and there are a variety of claims to the first Thanksgiving—some in Florida, some in Canada, some in New Mexico. In that time, turning to God in thanks was the norm rather than the exception. Since those first Thanksgivings, numerous American presidents and military leaders have declared days of thanks and praise, and days of fasting and sorrow.
Lucky 13. At Sapir, Adam Bellow reflects on his father Saul’s novel, Mr. Sammler’s Planet, and its meaning 50 years after its publication. From the article:
So yes, Sammler’s outlook is classically neoconservative. But it is a one-eyed vision, deeply penetrating but lacking stereoscopic perspective. We have two eyes for a reason, one to show us human frailty and fallibility up close, the other to provide cosmic perspective on the broader human comedy, to see ourselves as God might see us. Sammler’s one good eye appears to toggle back and forth, struggling to integrate these perspectives until at the end he finally succeeds.
My own reading is as follows. Sammler is not personally racist and neither was his creator, and if readers get past the first chapter, this eventually becomes clear—at least to those not blinded by ideological prejudice, personal grievance, or (in certain cases) both. Far from a neoconservative screed, it is a book about the recovery of Sammler’s humanity and his sense of connection with others. When we meet him, he is on the verge of reawakening from his trauma-induced detachment and once again becoming fully human. The real arc of the story is therefore not political but spiritual.
It is important to recall that Sammler has been maimed, both physically and emotionally. He sees what is ugly in the world because of the ugly things that he himself has suffered, seen, and done. It is not easy to preserve hope while staring naked into the abyss. Yet throughout the book his thoughts return to Elya Gruner, a flawed human specimen who has nonetheless chosen to be good—to honor the terms of his contract—his agreement with God. This choice of goodness makes no sense. It is arbitrary and confers no material benefits. It therefore resists explanation. But Sammler knows that he owes Elya a debt. It is also why he often thinks of the Polish groundskeeper who hid him in a marble crypt for no good reason other than the recognition of their shared humanity.
Bonus: At Reason, Ron Bailey concludes that nuclear power saves lives. A lot. From the piece:
The economists reckon that the construction of each additional nuclear power plant, by reducing air pollution, could save more than 800,000 life years. "According to our baseline estimates, over the past 38 years, Chernobyl reduced the total number of [nuclear power plants] worldwide by 389, which is almost entirely driven by the slowdown of new construction in democracies," they report. "Our calculations thus suggest that, globally, more than 318 million expected life years have been lost in democratic countries due to the decline in [nuclear power plant] growth in these countries after Chernobyl." They estimate the U.S. lost 141 million life years due to the slowdown in nuclear power deployment.
Cautioning that their estimates are only intended to illustrate a hypothetical timeline in which nuclear power plants continued to grow at the same rate as before the Chernobyl disaster, the researchers nonetheless conclude that "air pollution would have likely been much lower, which in turn, would have had significant health benefits."
For the Good of the Cause
Uno. Get the tumbler, the ice, and the libation ready . . . for the next AmPhil “Scotch Talks” webinar—scheduled for Thursday, December 12, from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. (Eastern)—this one hosted by Jeremy Beer and featuring the terrific trio of Chivaun Wolter, Allison Rigterink, and James Davenport, on hand to talk about the savviest ways to find new foundations and win them over. It’s free, and for thee, so sign up right here.
Due. At Philanthropy Daily, Andrew Fowler shines a light on the charitable heart of George Washington. Read it here.
Department of Bad Jokes
Q: Why do reindeer wear bells?
A: Their horns don’t work.
A Dios
Notre-Dame de Paris is back. This Sunday, December 8th, it reopens as a place for worshippers, five years after a devastating fire. Quasimodo’s sabbatical is over.
May the Bells, of Joy, Toll for Thee,
Jack Fowler, who contemplates gargoyles at jfowler@amphil.com.
