Monthly Archives: October 2017

500 Years On – Does Our Reformation Need A Reformation?

Posted on October 30, 2017 by Joel D. Hirst

If you go to Mali in West Africa one of the first things you will invariably hear are the stories of the great Mansa Musa and his Malian Empire; of the Hajj when he took so much gold through Cairo … Continue reading →

Posted in philosophy, Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment

Of Calvin and Hanbal – Of Prejudice and Unknowing

Posted on October 28, 2017 by Joel D. Hirst

I don’t write frequently about religion or faith. Perhaps this comes from my degree in theology; a childhood on the ‘foreign field’ in pews hewn and rough. When something is handled too often it ceases to inspire; the rolling road … Continue reading →

Posted in philosophy, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

How Marcovaldo Destroyed Paul Krugman

Posted on October 22, 2017 by Joel D. Hirst

“The Society for the Implementation of Christmas Consumption has launched a campaign to push the Destructive Gift!” (…) “The important thing (…) is that the Destructive Gift serves to destroy articles of every sort: just what’s needed to speed up … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Review, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Communism 4.0

Posted on October 18, 2017 by Joel D. Hirst

One of the strongest criticisms which the journalist and writer Edmund Fawcett (whose excellent book I reviewed only yesterday) had of the Nobel Prize winning economist Friedrich Hayek was the latter’s conflation of ‘advances’ in modern science and his juxtaposition … Continue reading →

Posted in Liberty, Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment

Our Liberalism of Melancholy

Posted on October 17, 2017 by Joel D. Hirst

“Our liberalism of melancholy.” That’s how Edmund Fawcett, journalist and writer summed up his sweeping tale of ‘liberalism’ as an idea and its impact on the west. Liberalism, in the historical sense of the word, “Liberalism is a political philosophy or … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Review, Liberty, philosophy, Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Civilization and the Smithsonian

Posted on October 15, 2017 by Joel D. Hirst

Civilization; what is civilization? What differentiates a civilization from a culture, from a language or a piece of land surrounded on all sides by a border, arbitrary or otherwise but which nevertheless encloses – freeing or imprisoning depending upon the … Continue reading →

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“The Idiot” by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Posted on October 2, 2017 by Joel D. Hirst

I’ve always wondered why history chooses certain books for preservation, for posterity and others are discarded. It is said that a classic is a book that is still being read 100 years after its publication. For this reason, and if … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Review, Uncategorized | 12 Comments