In 1961, a young psychiatrist initiated a one-man insurgency against his own profession. ‘Psychiatry is conventionally defined as a medical specialty concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of mental diseases,’ he wrote. ‘I submit that this definition, which is still widely accepted, places psychiatry in the company of alchemy and astrology and commits it to the category of pseudoscience. The reason for this is that there is no such thing as “mental illness”.’ http://www.aeonmagazine.com/world-views/holly-case-thomas-szasz-insanity-plea/ Read more

People who are perfectly capable of thinking, or at least of galumphing through an argument without serious injury, cannot or will not think about this. They do not trouble to argue; they react, they cry out, they call names. http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/see-no-evil.html Read more

The Boy Scouts are en route to holding that there is nothing to being a boy, and nothing to the boy’s becoming a man; they might as well be the Unisex Scouts, as they are in Canada, where the scouting movement has collapsed. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/04/9970/ Read more

Eminent bioethicist Leon Kass on the dangers of a world increasingly indifferent to matters of human dignity. http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887324493704578428843742209304-lMyQjAxMTAzMDIwMjEyNDIyWj.html?mod=wsj_valetbottom_email Read more

Complex rather than single causality is the norm, not the exception, for terrorism. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/04/9961/ Read more

Rod Dreher The question Western Christians face now is whether or not they are going to lose Christianity altogether in this new dispensation. Too many of them think that same-sex marriage is merely a question of sexual ethics. They fail to see that gay marriage, and the concomitant collapse of marriage among poor and working-class heterosexuals, makes perfect sense given the autonomous individualism sacralized by modernity and embraced by contemporary culture—indeed, by many who call themselves Christians. They don’t grasp... Read more

A new study shows them to be among the most contented in the Western world. What gives? http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/14/why-are-the-israelis-so-damn-happy.html Read more

From the WSJ: Susan Patton told young women to look for a mate in college. Liberals went crazy. My mom said the same thing. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324100904578402550244371508.html Read more

Our public debate about religious liberty is missing a clear definition of religion. The absence of that definition has generated confusion, frustration, shrill voices, and short tempers. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/04/9883/?utm_source=RTA+Hanssen+Religion+Public+Private&utm_campaign=winstorg&utm_medium=email Read more

In his effort to establish ‘Zion on American soil,’ the founder of Mormonism was deeply influenced by the seminal Jewish mystical work, not to mention the polygamy practiced by the Patriarchs. http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/how-kabbala-shaped-mormon-faith-1.468042 Read more