Brothers Judd Blog

If two New Hampshire men aren't a match for the Devil, we might as well give the country back to the Indians. -Stephen Vincent Benet (1898-1943)

August 2025

Homocentric Universe

IT’S BRANCH RICKEY’S UNIVERSE…:

On the Unlikeliness of Life: Why We’re Still Lucky to Be Alive Today (Simon Boas, July 23, 2025, LitHub)

I think, whether you believe in divine creation or solely in physics (though the two are really not incompatible), there can be no dispute about how fortuitous it is that we are here today as free, conscious entities, able to think and experience and love. Whether it is because some loving, omnipotent, unoriginated Being consciously decided to make the particular farting, mewling, grasping masterpiece that is you, or because a set of cosmic coincidences aligned so perfectly and yet so improbably that Simon Boas resulted, being alive at all is something we don’t appreciate nearly enough.

There can be no dispute about how fortuitous it is that we are here today as free, conscious entities, able to think and experience and love.

I’ve always approached this issue much more from the empirical, scientific side, and yet the conclusion is the same. Any physicist can explain the origins of the universe from a description of big bangs and space­time and matter, but will also attest to two things: that none of this would have existed but for some pretty spectacular ‘Goldilocks’ coincidences (not too hot and not too cold); and that there are myriad things which not only can’t be explained now, but which may never be.

The universe is fine-­tuned for us to exist.

…”Luck is the residue of design.”

Family Sex

THERE’S NOTHING IN ATOMIZATION WORTH CELEBRATING:

After Civility: Smashing the patriarchy sounded fun, but it turns out even rebels often depend on the norms they are undermining. (Elizabeth Grace Matthew, 8/15/25, Law & Liberty)

In the season six Sex and the City episode “A Woman’s Right to Shoes” (2003), perpetually single protagonist Carrie Bradshaw is dismayed that someone absconded from a party with her $485 stilettos. She is even more frustrated when the party host, a married mother of three, not only fails to reimburse her for the loss but also “shames” her, calling it “crazy” to spend $485 on designer shoes—ones that, in fact, she used to wear herself before she had what she calls “a real life,” intimating that Carrie’s unmarried, childless existence is less worthy of respect and deference than her own.

Carrie, fuming, recounts indignantly to her friend Charlotte that she has bought this very friend an engagement gift, a wedding gift, and three baby gifts, not to mention traveling for her wedding. She has spent, in total, “over $2300 celebrating her choices.” Charlotte tries to offer context: “But those were gifts … if you got married, or had a child, she would spend the same on you.” Carrie responds: “And if I don’t ever get married or have a child, then, what, I get Bubkis? … If you are single, after graduation, there isn’t one occasion where people celebrate you. … I’m thrilled to give you gifts, to celebrate your life; I just think it stinks that single people are left out of it.”

What Carrie fails to recognize is that we give such gifts not to celebrate these individuals’ morally neutral “life choices,” but rather to honor marriage and childbirth as laudable and societally desirable. If they are no longer seen that way, it is only a matter of time before not just the norms of dating (which emerged as a prequel to marriage and family) but also the broader norms of treating other people with reciprocal dignity erode as well. After all, the very notion of giving gifts to celebrate milestones like marriage and childbirth is, at bottom, a statement about our shared investment in the institutions to which we all, whether married or not, owe our societal stability. To personalize this reality in a resentful, individual way, as Carrie does, is to grossly underestimate the fragility of society itself.

Religion

I AND THOU:

sex! swing dancing! sixtine!: come for the Renaissance erotics; stay for my problems with Brideshead Revisited (Tara Isabella Burton, Aug 07, 2025, The Lost Word)

This idea, like so much of the magical tradition, comes out of Plato, via hs late antique Alexandrian followers. We have an inherent attraction – and it is attraction – towards the good, and the true, and the beautiful, and God; erotic love, rightly understood, pulls us not just towards physical beauty but towards what that beauty represents: which you can find in higher forms of symmetry, or knowledge of prime numbers. Matthew Crawford helpfully touches on this in another context: in his recent First Things/Substack essays “Is Math Erotic?”/”Math is Erotic”. We’re attracted not just to the beautiful but the beautifully true. (I admit I want to read an even nerdier second postscript from him that goes into more detail about how eros differs from mere contemplative appreciation).

That attraction is, basically, hackable, by magicians capable of hacking it – but ultimately our attraction is to God, or the Good, or the One, or whatever Platonic words you want to use. Everything else is cosmological flotsam.

So far, so fair.

Oh, but, God, what do you do about other people?

This is the part where, I think, the magical worldview, and maybe the Platonic worldview, and whatever version of Christianity isn’t magical (or you might say, is magical differently) diverge. Maybe I’m too much of a Protestant, or a Kierkegaardian, or too much a nineteenth-century scholar, or a twenty-first century post-Kantian in my moral horror of treating people as means, but what always galls me about these ideas of ascent and descent, of loves that really mean the love of God, is that they seem to have so little to do with loving a person. The other night at a Cracks in Postmodernity event, a friend was explaining their reading of Brideshead Revisited to me: that we move from the aesthetic realm of Charles Ryder’s love for Sebastian, to the more explicitly romantic nature of Charles’s love for Julia, to the final completion: Charles’s conversion, his love for God. But does that mean Sebastian and Julia are just waystations? Is Charles’s love for them just a metaphor for divine love, the way, say, dancing is a metaphor for sex?

This idea may be the right one. It may – I’m not sure – also be deeply Christian; of course Christians have our own version of it; the batter my heart, three person’d God, the Bernini angel that pierces St. Teresa’s breast – He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart,…when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God…[that] made me moan. There’s precedent, too, of thinking of all the things of this world, love included, as merely conveyances for the knowledge and love of God. Augustine himself (as the always-insightful Sam Kimbriel reminded me, when I was driving myself nuts over this exact topic back in May) distinguishes between right objects of enjoyment (basically: God), and right objects of use (basically, everything else).

But is that all we are to each other? Objects?

Here’s what I can’t get past: the idea that whatever’s going on, with someone, at whatever communication is happening at the level of dance, or whatever dance is a metaphor for, is only real insofar as it points to this other, better, higher thing. Are we really supposed to conclude that desire for someone obviates all the particularities that make them them, in favor of a passion for unmoved movers and parallel lines? If I could be convinced that this were the right way to be I could, I think, accept it with resignation; but I don’t understand how you can love somebody, or want somebody, if what you actually want from or through them is something that has nothing to do their their them-ness, if they’re just an occasion for the real relationship between you and math, or even you and God. How is that fair to Sebastian? How to Julia? Is God that kind of jealous God?

When Christ commanded that we love one another as He loved us, He means as subjects, not objects.

Presidents

“GREAT GOBLIN-BEAST”:

The Ghost Bear (Theodore Roosevelt, Forgotten Tales and Vanished Trails)

They were surprised to find that, during their short absence, something — apparently a bear — had visited camp and rummaged about among their things, scattering the contents of their packs and, in sheer wantonness, destroying their lean-to. The footprints of the beast were quite plain, but at first they paid no particular heed to them, busying themselves with rebuilding the lean-to, laying out their beds and stores, and lighting the fire.

While Bauman was making ready supper, it being already dark, his companion began to examine the tracks more closely, and soon took a brand from the fire to follow them up, where the intruder had walked along a game trail after leaving the camp. When the brand flickered out, he returned and took another, repeating his inspection of the footprints very closely. Coming back to the fire, he stood by it a minute or two, peering out into the darkness, and suddenly remarked: “Bauman, that bear must have been walking on two legs.”

Anglospherics Uncategorized

WHERE’S GERALD FORD WHEN WE NEED HIM:

The American Revolutions of 1776 (Vincent Phillip Muñoz, Summer 2025, National Affairs)

As America’s 250th anniversary approaches, not everyone is eager to celebrate the Declaration of Independence and the political revolution it sparked. The left has long been skeptical of 1776. Their critique is familiar: “[A]ll men are created equal” did not really mean all individuals because the Constitution did not include African Americans or women, and the founders’ alleged commitment to the rights of man was really a cover to advance their own economic interests.

While most, if not all, of these arguments have been addressed, a different criticism has emerged in recent years from the “post-liberal” right. Liberalism has failed, political theorist Patrick Deneen alleges, because liberalism has succeeded. On natural rights, the late philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre wrote: “The truth is plain: there are no such rights, and belief in them is one with belief in witches and in unicorns.” The political philosophy of the American founding, some on the right now claim, was untrue, and it has eroded traditional morality and undermined sound religious belief.

There is, however, an alternative interpretation of the Declaration — one that rejects the arguments of both the progressive left and the post-liberal right. The American founding was indeed animated by a revolution in political thinking, but it was hostile to neither human equality nor religion. Moreover, the American founding’s political philosophy of natural rights placed limits on political authority in recognition of, and out of deference to, legitimate religious authority.

America’s separation from Great Britain in 1776 set in motion three interrelated revolutions. In the Declaration and their writings on religious liberty, the founding fathers instituted a new understanding of the foundations of political authority, advanced a new conception of government’s purpose, and recognized the existence of religious truth and the legitimacy of religious authority. America’s founding was animated by both the spirit of liberty and the spirit of religion — a philosophical and practical achievement worth understanding and attempting to recover today.

It’s a shame that the Oval will be occupied by a man who doesn’t believe in the Founding whenm we celebrate the 250th.

Technology

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS QUALITY:

AI has passed the aesthetic Turing Test − and it’s changing our relationship with art (Tamilla Triantoro, 20, 2025, The Conversation)

In 1950, British scientist Alan Turing wondered how and when the outputs of a computer would be indistinguishable from those of humans. Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
For decades, this remained a theoretical benchmark. But with the recent explosion of powerful chatbots, the original Turing Test for conversation has arguably been passed. This breakthrough raises a new question: If AI can master conversation, can it master art?

The evidence suggests it has already passed what might be called an “aesthetic Turing Test.”

AI can generate music, images and movies so convincingly that people struggle to distinguish them from human creations.

In music, platforms like Suno and Udio can produce original songs, complete with vocals and lyrics, in any imaginable genre in seconds. Some are so good they’ve gone viral. Meanwhile, photo-realistic images are equally deceptive. In 2023, millions believed that the fabricated photo of Pope Francis in a puffer jacket was real, a stunning example of AI’s power to create convincing fiction.

Conservative Thought

CONSERVATISM SEEKS TO CONSERVE LIBERALISM:

The Concrete Humanism of Aspirational Conservatism: (Conservatism needs to rediscover its aspirational character to appeal to a rising generation. John D. Wilsey, 8/18/25, Law & Liberty)

What is the point of conservatism? Is conservatism only relevant for politics and partisanship? Is it only the neighborhood crank, the peevish uncle, or the lunatic on Facebook that has an interest in being a conservative? Or is being a conservative like being a traditionalist, resisting change for no better reason than, “we’ve always done it this way”?

In other words, can we think of any good reason to be a conservative other than politics, culture wars, or traditionalism?

Of course we can! When conservatism is only about tradition for tradition’s sake, maintaining the status quo, or fleeting partisan power mongering, it is repellent, not attractive; it is boorish, not classy; and it is misanthropic, not humanistic. In my recent book, Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer, I attempt to lay out an alternative vision.

American conservatism is as old as the Republic, and that conservatism has always been far upstream of politics. Politics is important to conservatives, but cultivating the permanent things—the good, the true, and the beautiful—is of primary importance. Conservatism is a temperament, a disposition, an attitude that looks to conserve those things in humanity that make life worth living.

I also think of conservatism as aspirational. Conservatives do not value the permanent things like Aesop’s dog in the manger, or as a miser who stuffs a hoard of cash in the mattress. We seek the conservation of the permanent things for the sake of the freedom and flourishing of individuals, societies, and the nation. Aspirational conservatism aims for an ever-higher destiny for persons, guided by the best of American tradition, while always acknowledging human limitations, the inevitability of change, and the ubiquity of imperfection. In this way, conservatism was made for man, not man for conservatism.

Sex

THE TIES THAT BIND:

Masculinity at the End of History (Matthew Gasda, Fall 2025, American Affairs)

By the close of the twentieth century, the links in the chain of value transmission were under severe pressure, but the whole chain hadn’t completely disintegrated. The internet was new. Teen behavior had not yet turned antisocial. And there were old men around who belonged to things or at least had vivid memories of belonging to mass membership organizations: unions, churches, veterans’ associations, Rotary Clubs, Masons, Elks, Knights of Columbus, neighborhood bars. That kind of communal memory is now largely gone, as any trip to the now virtually empty or decaying physical meeting places of these organizations can attest.

Today, male adolescence largely lacks that primitive, self-organizing spontaneity. Sports has been co-opted into ultra-organized traveling sports. Boys learn from watching role models online and become hyper-optimized one-sport athletes. If they gamble or bet, it’s not over cards on a porch; it’s on a phone, on DraftKings. The steep decline in drinking as a habit for young adults may be heralded as a moral victory of sorts, but its dire consequences for male socialization and dating (outsourced to the antiseptic world of Tinder) are already in evidence, a too predict­able development. Even games have become less ritualistic because these are played online with headphones on: enervated, isolated, overstimulated. No real bonding.

I will argue that today’s young men are not just experiencing the technological foreclosure of their own possible development into functional manhood—but are enthusiastically participating in it. They are subject to many of the same social expectations and psychological pressures as men before, yet they are simultaneously living through a warped form of traditional American masculinity that carries all the burdens and drawbacks of that tradition with few (or none) of its former benefits.

It’s no wonder that young men are atomized after our war on fraternal organizations.

Republican Liberty

DEFENDING THE CONSTITUTIONAL ORDER:

John Marshall on the Supreme Court & Universal Injunctions (Matthew A. Pauley, August 13th, 2025, Imaginative Conservative)

The very first Congress created the federal district courts in the Judiciary Act of 1789, shortly after George Washington was sworn in as the first President. Today there are 94 federal district courts, at least one in every state and more in the more heavily populated states.

These courts have statutory jurisdiction to hear cases and controversies “in law and equity.” Equity emerged in England in the Middle Ages when litigants who couldn’t get relief in the ordinary common law courts would petition the king to rectify the injustice. In time, these matters were directed to the king’s right-hand man, the Chancellor, who began to convene courts of equity, where the proceedings were faster and the remedies more flexible.

We do not have separate courts of equity in America today, but when a court sits “in equity,” it can award civil remedies other than money damages, including injunctions, which are essentially court orders prohibiting a certain course of conduct or enforcement of a particular law or policy.

Enforcement of an executive order or law can be enjoined (prohibited) by a court if the law or order is unconstitutional. In the seminal case of Marbury v Madison (1803), Chief Justice Marshall established the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review, the power to declare acts of Congress or the President unconstitutional and void. Since then, it has come to be accepted that all federal courts, including the district courts, may determine the constitutionality of an act of Congress or the President and even issue injunctions stopping their enforcement, although the Supreme Court is always the highest authority on such matters. To whom, however, may these injunctions be addressed? For almost 200 years, the answer was typically only the litigants in the case. In the last few decades, however, federal district courts have begun to issue “universal” or nation-wide injunctions, applicable not only to the litigants in the case but to everyone in the United States.

Supporters of this enhanced judicial authority defend it as necessary to curb what they see as excessive legislative and especially executive power. Critics, however, point out that it leads to a phenomenon known as forum shopping in which potential plaintiffs (people bringing a civil lawsuit) choose a court likely to be favorable to their case.

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