The central insight of Silicon Valley was not merely to hire the best and brightest but to treat them as such, to allow them the flexibility and freedom and space to create. The most effective software companies are artist colonies, filled with temperamental and talented souls. And it is their unwillingness to conform, to submit to power, that is

In Baltzell’s view, an aristocracy driven by talent is an essential feature of any republic. The challenge is ensuring that such aristocracies remain open to new members and do not descend into mere caste structures, which close their ranks along racial or religious lines. “If an upper class degenerates into a caste,” Baltzell wrote, “the

The soul of the country was at stake, having been abandoned in the name of inclusivity. The problem is that tolerance of everything often constitutes belief in nothing.

But is a belief that has no cost really a belief? The protective veil of anonymity may instead be robbing this generation of an opportunity to develop an instinct for real ownership over an idea, of the rewards of victory in the public square as well as the costs of defeat.

The problem is that those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all. An overly timid engagement with the debates of our time will rob one of the ferocity of feeling that is necessary to move the world. “If you do not feel it, you will not get it by hunting for it,” Goethe reminds us in Faust. “You will never touch the hearts of others, if

The victors of history have a habit of growing complacent at precisely the wrong moment.

The public will forgive many failures and sins of the political class. But the electorate will not overlook a systemic inability to harness technology for the purpose of effectively delivering the goods and services that are essential to our lives.

When emerging technologies that give rise to wealth do not advance the broader public interest, trouble often follows. Put differently, the decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.

Unlike the legions of lawyers who have come to dominate American politics in the modern era, many early American leaders, even if not practitioners of science themselves, were nonetheless remarkably fluent in matters of engineering and technology.