First, I think worldly politics – especially democracy – is both the functioning of these elements of human nature in a fallen world and also tries to be a check on it. Our politics will always be the communal space where a bunch of self-interested, self-justifying, intellectually-limited assholes (meaning: all of us) come together to try to make decisions about how we will coexist for at least one more day. Any political utopianism that tries to deify politics as something more noble than this is a fool’s errand, probably. But, I do believe the open, Madisonian-style democratic process is an attempt at a check on that asshole-ness, and a worthy attempt at that.

From an email sent August 8, 2020

I am of the strong belief that I write and think much better in conversation with others, rather than just writing into the internet vacuum as I so often do here. That’s why so often my posts are responses to and critiques of other’s works. In an effort to capture some of the writing I do in correspondence with others and share that energy here, I am shamelessly stealing something that Alan Jacobs does with this new feature. Occasionally, I will share small excerpts from conversations with others (mostly in email) that I wrote. To all those who I write back and forth with, fear not. Your ideas and writings in private won’t be used; just small, context-less pieces of my own writing that I enjoyed crafting or I found interesting or worth thinking about more. Consider this an exercise in shameless self-promotion.