Happy first day of classes! I am teaching The Prince today, a book which is unfortunately utterly devoid of contemporary relevance

At least the woke censors have finally figured out that some things are genuinely subversive

A total delight to talk education, the great books, AI, and passion with Matt and Sam in the latest KYE: www.patreon.com/posts/147187...

This Know Your Enemy episode with @mattdinan.bsky.social is everything I hoped for from the description. In our response to AI in education this is the attitude we must take, attack the demand side by showing students there is something much better. www.patreon.com/posts/great-...

Loved this episode on my morning run today. @mattdinan.bsky.social giving some inspiration for the coming semester!

Frank, I am very disappointed in you.

[hollywood voiceover voice] in a shocking twist, francis fukuyama *is* the last man

The Republic Book IX remains the most essential political reading of the current era.

mattdinan.substack.com/p/the-ai-ske... Matt Dinan on teaching writing amidst the apocalypse @mattdinan.bsky.social

Posting this important @mattdinan.bsky.social piece again. I recognized the challenge in the extract 20 years ago because in the courses I taught, students were all conscripts, not volunteers. I had to introduce them to the pleasures and challenges of writing. mattdinan.substack.com/p/the-ai-ske...

Thanks, John. I think this situation can actually be a huge opportunity for us to re-commit to authentic liberal arts education.

I have a new article called “Kierkegaardian Individualism and the Political” at the Canterbury Institute at Oxford’s PolUtica and Poetics journal www.politicsandpoetics.co.uk/current-issu...

I started to write something strident about the Harper's piece, then changed direction and did this instead: substack.com/home/post/p-...

“In the beginning computer scientists made the internet.” @mattdinan.bsky.social with the creation story for our times. mattdinan.substack.com/p/nein?utm_c...

"Now, human beings had long ago started to think that they were like packets of packets of data. And ChatGPT, being craftier than other applications, was actually packets of data." @mattdinan.bsky.social with an excellent word this morning:

Foreign interference and the viral “Pencil-gate” conspiracy theory at Canada’s polling stations are connected. I wrote on shenanigans at the polls and how to do our part to keep elections secure for @thestar.com (And, I successfully snuck in the word “pollercoaster”…big win!)

Use the provided pencil. Or bring your own pen. However you choose to mark your ballot, as long as it's just one mark, clearly in the designated circle, it will be counted, cross checked, & witnessed. Our ballot counting is *very* secure contrary to conspiracy-theorising on X, Facebook & tiktok.

It struck a chord because it's true. As I write in More Than Words, the chief benefit of LLMs to writing (and teaching writing) is it forces us to examine what we value in writing. We should be building statues of the students who remain proud to be themselves & encourage others to join them.

Here’s an observation that’s closing in on 80k likes on twitter:

Very proud of my ALMA MATER for its PRINCIPLED STAND

Whether it's winning the Masters, or bravely settling for Yale after not getting in to Harvard, people named Rory are inspirations to us all.

Wrote a grumpy blog about this: substack.com/home/post/p-...

What do students use AI for in higher ed? -cheating -depriving themselves of developing higher order skills -avoiding thinking All along these tools have been sold as freedom from drudgery, but they're actually "freedom" from the ends of education.

BE COOL! The Sicilians are backwards and dispersed, and the Athenian Empire will soon be greater than ever before!

Could God impose a tariff so high that not even he could pay it?

One of the worst things about this is all of the boomers who are now going to wait even longer to retire

I have been hard on Canada, but let's face it: there are two countries in North America that have had constitutional crises in 2024-5, and in only one of them did the constitution work exactly the way it was supposed to

We're a month away from the beginning of Mark Carney Presents: Maple Abundance, and I, for one, cannot wait

In truth I switched all my retirement savings to these "ethical" Canada first funds, heavily leveraged in green energy, etc., and, for once, being annoying is also producing some material gain

I am writing a piece about a remarkable irony: the most famous work of Canadian political thought is George Grant's Lament for a Nation. In that essay, Grant argues that Canada's "Red Tory" tradition was in danger of being swallowed entire by American liberalism. Our current moment is producing a

I'm emptying out my retirement accounts and leveraging myself completely in Canadian Trade War Victory Bonds

The next season of White Lotus should be on the resort at Fogo Island in order to kick off The Canadian Century

BAN PHONE

is on the surface of things. Ravelstein wants us to see that this surface is worthy of our attention. This, I think, it does through its abundant oddness." I commend to you this wonderful retrospective essay on 'Ravelstein' by @mattdinan.bsky.social: hedgehogreview.com/issues/after...

Ravelstein's greatness "might come from the ambition of its goal, a goal at once radical and conservative, to help us read the 'occult gift' of the world, to 'reopen' what we thought was closed. . . . Chick, quoting Strauss without attribution, notes that the heart of things

Now unpaywalled, my "reconsideration" of Saul Bellow's Ravelstein @ 25: hedgehogreview.com/issues/after...

In the new Hedgehog Review I make the case for Saul Bellow's Ravelstein on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of its publication: hedgehogreview.com/issues/after...

In the new Hedgehog Review I make the case for Saul Bellow's Ravelstein on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of its publication: hedgehogreview.com/issues/after...

I’ve never seen Canadians more angry about anything, ever

the single most un-american and anti-constitutional statement ever uttered by an american president

Pretty stoked to have my case for the greatness of Ravelstein appearing alongside America's greatest *living* novelist

I will *never* correct my 6y/o who thinks the little flying baby is named "Cupert"

A snow day is also a minor civic miracle - and we ought to treat it as such. New from Clare Coffey:

Very important! "I am continually impressed by the extent to which very basic human lessons can’t be provided by osmosis, or expected to be inferred from what is done. I think we are impatient now..."

A little substance post my 14y/o daughter called "incoherent; not [my] best work": mattdinan.substack.com/p/now-select...

If you’re a runner, start core work in your twenties

I will be putting 25% retaliatory tariffs on my friendships with Americans

Unfortunately no Episcopalians will see Trump’s tweets because 100% of them are on this app instead