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"Luke Ford reports all of the 'juicy' quotes, and has been doing it for years." (Marc B. Shapiro)
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) LATEST POSTS:
- Tournier on Desmond Ford
- The Borrowed Robe: How Antisemitism Dresses in Each Age’s Virtue
- The Fence and the Blessing: How Jews Have Thought About Gentiles
- A Place For You
- Tournier on Luke Ford
- Tournier on The Nostradamus Kid
- An Alliance Theory of Antisemitism
- Tournier on Cinema Paradiso and Desmond Ford
- The Self-Hating Jew
- The Alliance Theory in the Academy
- Dennis Prager v Cedars-Sinai Lawsuit
- Dennis Prager Through Randall Collins: Interaction Ritual Chains
- What is a ‘Received Idea’?
- Jordan Bardella: The Manufacture of Normality
- Everyone Became Television: Bourdieu’s Warning and the 2026 Iran War
- Marine Le Pen
- The Coalition-Proximity Rule
- Nigel Farage
- Bernard Haykel: A Life Between the Text and the Gun
- Walker Connor (1926-2017)
BEST POSTS:
- * The Enlightenment Wasn’t Enlightened (6-23-26)
* Mr. Burge Draws The Line (6-23-26)
* 'Improving on Democracy' (6-17-26)
* People Leak To People Who Are Fun (6-11-26)
* Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists? (6-11-26)
* Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas (6-3-26)
* Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists (6-3-26)
* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
* The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth (6-2-26)
* Show Me How It Travels (6-2-26)
* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
* Centering Marginalized Voices (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Washington Post put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Financial Times put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for the Los Angeles Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for The New York Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* Why Wembanyama Lives on the Perimeter (5-31-26)
* The Emotional Palettes Of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco & Sacramento (5-27-26)
* The Administrative Capital: Sacramento Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* San Diego - The Quiet Republic (5-27-26)
* The Quiet Bar: San Diego Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* SF v LA Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* Why Talent Travels Poorly Between San Francisco and Los Angeles (5-27-26)
* San Francisco and Los Angeles as Rival Models of Urban Access (5-27-26)
* Social Cliques in New York, 2026 (5-25-26)
* Social Cliques in San Francisco, 2026 (5-25-26)
* The Rival Courts of Washington (5-25-26)
* The City of Private Rooms (5-25-26)
Category Archives: Epistemics
The Jurisdictional Wars: Alliance Theory and the Battle for America’s Master Institutions
America’s high-status actors do not compete for power by admitting they want it. They compete by deploying moral languages that frame their authority as necessary, virtuous, or inevitable. This is the central insight of David Pinsof‘s Alliance Theory: moral vocabularies … Continue reading
Posted in America, Elites, Epistemics
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When the Epistemology Collapses: Stephen Park Turner and the Post-Liberal Catholic Project
There is no famous direct encounter between the sociologist Stephen P. Turner and the Harvard law professor Adrian Vermeule. They operate in different institutional worlds and have rarely, if ever, addressed each other by name. Turner works in the philosophy … Continue reading
Posted in Adrian Vermeule, Epistemics, Stephen Turner
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But It Violates A Canon!
I feel like I’m getting ripped off when an expert explaining religion or politics points out how this or that manifestation violates the canon of this or that, as though canons are universal, transcendent, and global rather than post hoc … Continue reading
Posted in Epistemics, Islam
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So You Want To Be A Truth-Optimizer?
The first and hardest thing is learning to tolerate uncertainty without rushing to fill it. Most people reach for an explanation the moment something confuses them, and the first explanation that feels satisfying tends to stick. A truth-optimizer waits. He … Continue reading
Posted in Epistemics
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Is It Truth Or BS?
How can I tell whether an expert is feeding me his best attempt at truth optimization vs feeding me BS (in the David Pinsof evolutionary psychology sense)? The simplest way is to stop listening to what the expert says he … Continue reading
Posted in Epistemics
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‘I Know Things That You Do Not Know’
All of my adult life, more institutionally embedded people than myself told me, “I know things that you don’t know.” At least half the time, this special knowledge was not decisive. When someone inside an institution says, “I know things … Continue reading
Posted in Epistemics
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Why Do Elites Keep Predicting The Death Of Fundamentalism?
Everybody has a hero system, and just because you think this other hero system is outdated does not mean it will fade away any time soon. As the decades go by, the masses keep clinging to their guns and to … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Christianity, Epistemics, Orthodoxy
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Why You Should Believe Your Eyes, Not Elite Descriptions
Elite institutions routinely advance narratives that clash with what people can see and feel. This happens when official data, approved language, or moral framing require citizens to discount their own sensory experience to remain socially compliant. The result is not … Continue reading
Posted in America, Elites, Epistemics, Journalism
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Decoding America’s Moral Landscape
Gemini says: Alliance Theory suggests humans treat moral disagreements as loyalty tests rather than searches for objective facts. People signal their belonging to a coalition by adopting the group’s moral stance. This mechanism turns public debate into a series of … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, America, Epistemics
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American Epistemics
Written with help from Gemini: The concept of “no-fly zones” in social discourse refers to the informal but powerful taboos that prevent open critique of specific groups. This creates tension between the protection of minority communities and the epistemic health … Continue reading
Posted in America, Crime, Epistemics, Health, Journalism
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