Long time no Blog
I’ve been busy, busy, busy, but will still get to my short essay on property that was promised way back on June 10. I was at a conference in Quebec City at which I got to learn about and discuss the relationship between liberal thinking and aesthetics, in the form of Longinus’s On the Sublime, Kant’s Critique of Judgement, Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful and the Reflectons on the Revolution in France, and Schiller’s On the Sublime. I learned a lot (and have to admit that I would probably never have read Kant’s formidable Critique of Judgement otherwise.)
After that I was up to Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia to speak at the Institute for Humane Studies seminar on “Liberty and Crisis.” I gave three talks:
Individualism and Crisis
Is there a Crisis of Globalization?
War, Justice, and Law
My fellow lecturers there were Damon Chetson, David Henderson, and Jeff Hummel, and I learned from each of them. It was great fun.
Back in D.C. the next day I gave a talk on the historical origins of the idea of rights that informed the U.S. Bill of Rights at the “Bill of Rights Summer Institute for High School Teachers” sponsored by the Bill of Rights Institute.
Today I was in the Hart Senate Office Building for a rather fun and energetic discussion of libertarianism with 200 high school students involved in the Junior Statesmen of America. I was especially pleased that the young lady who introduced me had participated in the Cato University seminar in California in 2000.
I also finished up a short critique of a paper on common property by David Bollier in the Boston Review, which should be out this month.
I’ve got Cato University coming up, as well as plenty of other work, most importantly the Encyclopedia of Libertarianism, which is a major project. I’m working with my friend and former colleague Aaron Steelman on this project. More to come!