The Free Dutchman

  • In Defense of Liberalism (Review Of “Cynical Theories”)

    It is a boring platitude that history has produced its share of intellectual folly. Jean Jacques Rousseau, for example, believed that humans are born a “blank slate” and only corrupted as they grow up in modern society, an assertion he could have known to be insane merely by paying a few hours of attention to…

    Mark Vandenberg

  • The Logical End Result of Postmodernism Is Here

    I’m sure the lockdowns are fanning the flames, as it were, but something else must be going on too. It’s time to drop the pretense that this is about the sad death of George Floyd any longer.

    Mark Vandenberg

  • The Failure of Liberalism and Elegies for Hillbillies

    You know your reading is taking off when the books you’ve knocked off your list start connecting in your head like puzzle pieces on the dining room table. This happens to yours truly all the time nowadays, and it particularly occurred with two works I read in 2018, Patrick J. Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed and…

    Mark Vandenberg