Stephen R.C. Hicks's Blog, page 6

What Is Conservatism? James Orr (Cambridge Univ.) debates Stephen Hicks (Rockford Univ.)

James Orr defends “the conservative’s instinct for the particular over the universal, the empirical over the rational, the concrete over the abstract, the pragmatic over the ideal.” That is from Dr. Orr’s opening essay in this Reason Papers three-round debate with Dr. Stephen Hicks. Orr advocates and defends Conservatism; Hicks does the same for Liberalism. […]

Interpreting Picasso — amusing anecdote from Stravinksy

When composer Igor Stravinksy met Pablo Picasso in Italy in 1917, Picasso drew Stravinsky and gave him the portrait as a gift. But when Stravinksy tried to cross the border with it, he was suspected of attempting to smuggle secret plans out of the country. As Stravinsky tells it in his autobiography: “I shall never […]

Orwell: “To admit that an opponent might be both honest and intelligent is felt to be intolerable. …”

George Orwell in 1944: “To admit that an opponent might be both honest and intelligent is felt to be intolerable. It is more immediately satisfying to shout that he is a fool or a scoundrel, or both, than to find out what he is really like. It is this habit of mind, among other things, […]

Literacy Rates in Early Modernity

Year 1500 context: 50 years earlier Gutenberg had developed his printing press, eight years earlier Columbus had crossed the Atlantic, Michelangelo had just finished his Pietà, Luther was in school, and Copernicus was in university. Fewer than 10% of Europeans were literate. Source: Robert C. Allen, Global Economic History, Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 26. […]

Liberal Education vs. Indoctrination (quotation from J.S. Mill when younger)

“The very corner-stone of an education intended to form great minds, must be the recognition of the principle, that the object is to call forth the greatest possible quantity of intellectual power, and to inspire the intensest love of truth: and this without a particle of regard to the results to which the exercise of […]

Wendy Steiner on Kant and what Modern Art Abandoned

In her Venus in Exile: The Rejection of Beauty in 20th-Century Art, Wendy Steiner, a professor of literature at Penn, argues that “In modernism, the perennial rewards of aesthetic experience — pleasure, insight, empathy — were largely withheld, and its generous aim, beauty, was abandoned” (p. xv). Steiner notes that “the main symbol of such […]

Orthodox Christian Andy Schmitt interviews Stephen Hicks

Description: “Andy Schmitt and Stephen Hicks on the evolution of Western philosophy, especially the transition from modern to postmodern thought. They begin with fifteenth-century globalization unleashed by Columbus, Gutenberg’s press, and Martin Luther’s insistence on individual Scripture reading, through the emergence of scientific reasoning and the radical individualism of the Quakers. “They examine how postmodern […]

Mark Michael Lewis interviews Stephen Hicks on Objectivism, Postmodernism and Its Origins

Description: Join Dr. Stephen Hicks, philosopher, professor, author and Mark Michael Lewis as they discuss the philosophies of Postmodernism and Marxism and their strange union in modern woke politics—and the Objectivist contrast. Timestamps: 00:00 – Introduction to Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and Its Application 02:50 – Cultural Conversations: Postmodernism vs. Modernism 06:06 – The Impact of Postmodernism on Society 09:01 – Historical Perspectives on […]

Mark Michael Lewis interviews Stephen Hicks

Description: Join Dr. Stephen Hicks, philosopher, professor, author and Mark Michael Lewis as they discuss the philosophies of Postmodernism and Marxism and their strange union in modern woke politics—and the Objectivist contrast. Timestamps: 00:00 – Introduction to Ayn Rand and Its Application 02:50 – Cultural Conversations: Postmodernism vs. Modernism 06:06 – The Impact of Postmodernism on Society 09:01 – Historical Perspectives on Cultural […]

Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, and the sausage line

Capitalism, Socialism, & Communism are visiting and chatting. Socialism says he needs to do an errand. Three hours later he returns with a small package.“What took you so long?” asks Capitalism.“I had to buy some sausage, and there was a long line,” Socialism explains.“What’s a line?” asks Capitalism.And Communism inquires, “What’s sausage?” (A Soviet joke)