7. Darkness at Noon
1. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), 1–2.
2. Ibid, 5.
3. Ibid., 261.
4. Ibid., 58.
5. Ibid., 59.
6. Ibid., 24.
7. Ibid., 68.
8. Ibid., 85.
9. Ibid., 35.
10. Ibid., 86.
11. See the decade-long study by MIT scholar Natasha Dow Schull, Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012).
12. Christian Smith, The Sacred Project of American Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), ix–x.
13. Ibid., 7–8.
14. Ibid., 9–11.
15. For a more thorough critique of the rise of social science and its influence on American life, see Christopher Shannon, Conspicuous Criticism: Tradition, the Individual, and Culture in American Social Thought, from Veblen to Mills (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).
16. Alasdair MacIntyre, “Social Science Methodology as the Ideology of Bureaucratic Authority,” in Kelvin Knight, editor, The MacIntyre Reader (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998), 53.
17. Christopher Lasch, Haven in a Heartless World: The Family Besieged (New York: Basic Books, 1979), 189.
18. Leo Strauss, “Liberal Education and Mass Democracy,” in Robert Goldwin, editor, Higher Education and Modern Democracy: The Crisis of the Few and Many (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1967), 73–96.
19. Ibid.
20. Matthew Crawford, The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), 257.
21. George Dyson, Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1997), 10.
22. Robert Kraynak, “Justice Without Foundations,” New Atlantis, Summer 2011.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Philip Hamburger, “The History and Danger of Administrative Law,” Imprimis: A Publication of Hillsdale College, September 2014.
26. David Brooks, “The Organization Kid,” Atlantic Monthly, April 2001.
27. Ibid.
28. William Deresiewicz, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life (New York: Free Press, 2014), 3.
29. Mark Shiffman, “Majoring in Fear,” First Things, November 2014.
30. Charles Péguy, Notre Patrie: Oeuvres en Prose (1898–1909) (Paris: Pleiade, 1957), 834; see also Marjorie Villiers, Charles Péguy: A Study in Integrity (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 194.
31. Regarding Confederate monuments, see Cain Burdeau, “Monumental Fight,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 27, 2016. On Alexander Hamilton, see Terry Teachout, “Rapping the Legend,” Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2016. On corporate political activism, see Monica Langley, “Tech CEO Turns Rabble Rouser,” Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2016, quoting Georgia State Senator Josh McKoon. On American history, see Lynne V. Cheney, “The End of History, Part II,” Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2015. On philanthropies and democracy, see James Piereson, “Philanthropies Target Democracy for ‘Saving.’ Watch Out,” Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2014. On attacks on the insufficiently progressive, see Lloyd Cohen, “The Posthumous Attacks on Scalia Begin,” Wall Street Journal, May 5, 2016; note that in the case of George Mason University’s law school, the attacks failed. Note also the similar spirit directed at the (still living) Justice Clarence Thomas in the HBO film Confirmation; see Stuart Taylor Jr., “The Hollywood Hit-Job on Justice Clarence Thomas,” Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2016.
32. Editorial, “Little Sisters of the Government,” Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2015.
33. Sample headlines from the Wall Street Journal, September 2014 through May 2016.
34. Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, “The Coddling of the American Mind,” Atlantic Monthly, September 2015; Jefferson quoted therein.
35. Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon (New York: Bantam Books, 1968), 210–11.
36. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 663.