Category: Society
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Warum man seinen Cappuccino rasch trinken sollte…
Zeit fasziniert mich. Wer sich näher mit dem Phänomen der Zeit beschäftigt, merkt, dass wir eigentlich nur sehr wenig davon verstehen. Was ist Zeit? Welche Elemente machen unser Zeitgefühl aus? Und weshalb ist unser landläufiges Verständnis von Zeit so anders als dasjenige der Physik? Zeit ist die Uhr des Lebens 3 Milliarden Mal schlägt unser…
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Nathan der Aufgeklärte
G. E. Lessing schrieb Nathan der Weise im Jahre 1779, ein Theaterstück bestehend sowohl aus dramatischen als auch komödischen Elementen. Die Geschichte spielt im Jerusalem des 12. Jahrhunderts, in einer Zeit also, welche von Glaubenskriegen und militärischer Konfrontation zwischen Christentum und Islam geprägt war. So handelt auch Lessings Werk von Religion und den Glauben an…
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Why Liberals Should Be More Optimistic
Optimists think that the course of events will be positive, for them personally or for society in general. Realists, on the other hand, think that the course of events might turn out to be positive; they concede, however, that they can’t really know since reality consists of complex phenomena. Optimism and realism are sometimes used…
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The Right to Discriminate – It’s Not About Being Gay or Racist
An Alexandria gym terminated the membership of white nationalist Richard Spencer last week after another gym member confronted him with his racist views. Quite naturally, the private company used its right to discriminate. The media generally applauded the gym’s decision. On the other hand, various court decisions according to which Christian bakers and florists were…
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Der Suizid im Liberalismus
“Es gibt nur ein wirklich ernstes philosophisches Problem: den Selbstmord. Sich entscheiden, ob das Leben es wert ist, gelebt zu werden oder nicht, heißt auf die Grundfrage der Philosophie antworten. Alles andere – ob die Welt drei Dimensionen und der Geist neun oder zwölf Kategorien hat – kommt später. Das sind Spielereien; erst muss man…
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The Fallacious Romance of Politics with the Concept of Public Interest
The theory that there exists a thing called „public interest“ is a fallacious belief based on a romantic idea of political man. In truth, the overwhelming evidence shows us that governments are more likely to fail than markets, and when they do, the consequences of their failure are more catastrophic. Political man vs. economic man…
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The Right to Be Let Alone in a World of Cultural Diversity
The right to be let alone, as Justice Louis Brandeis famously put it in “Olmstead v. United States”, is commonly associated with the right to privacy in the Fourth Amendment. The constitutional “[…] right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures […]” critically separates…
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Why Freedom Is Favored by Secession and Subsidiarity
Majority voting inevitably alienates large parts of a population. As a Swiss citizen, I am all too aware of that fact, since we go to the polls as often as six times a year. This may be the necessary price of our more direct form of representative democracy. But in Switzerland, it has also led…
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The War Against Cash in Europe
There are good reasons why the debate on cash is heating up right now. While European governments and central banks have stepped up capital controls in the last few years, cash has become the major hurdle for conventional monetary policy. Therefore, many economists, as well as a number of high-ranking government officials, have presented and…