Not gonna lie, I don't really want to look back at the shithole year we're about to leave behind. Even as I type this, the year continues to be shitty, with two GOP congressional representatives putting forth bills likely to be voted on before Christmas that
Moral panic, especially in the United States, has always been a defining leitmotif of The Bugbear Dispatch. Sometimes, that means writing about current events directly tied to the news cycle; sometimes it means writing more abstract or at least less newsy essays with insights that are relevant to our historical
In his Society without God (NYU Press, 2008), sociologist Phil Zuckerman documented the many ways in which the Scandinavian countries--some of the least religious on earth--put highly religious countries, and particularly the United States, to shame with respect to positive social outcomes. It's a good read, and, while
Thoughts on Political Violence and the Death of American Civil Society Update: Shortly after the publication of this essay, Disney reinstated Jimmy Kimmel (presumably as a result of calculus over the loss of Disney+ streaming subscriptions). This is a victory, though not a massive one. The legacy media are still
Administrative Matters Hello, fellow bugbears! It has been a painful process—and the financial blow remains painful, and will for some time—but the migration of ye olde Bugbear Dispatch from Substack to Ghost is more or less complete! It will still take me some time to master the Ghost
Hello, fellow bugbears! I'm in the process of migrating everything from Substack to Ghost. If you received The Bugbear Dispatch via email before, you should be getting it now. I'll check in with some of you to make sure that's happening. Meanwhile, my old
The Bugbear Dispatch is, as of today, two years old! I want to thank all of you who have been with me for some or all of that time, and I hope the newsletter will have a bright future. One thing I’m announcing today is that the future of
Part II: Why Some Approaches to Spirituality Are a Bridge Too Far
Part I: Gods that Fail and the Seductive Nature of the Forbidden
Happy(?) Birthday to Me
Your friendly neighborhood bugbear is back and thinking about Eastern Europe and American extremism
On celebrating ourselves despite petty Pride-month attacks from our fascist government