I first came across your substack through a reference to it in the substack of a British writer, Ed West. The first essay I read was like having a glass of cold water thrown in my face, but in a good way. It was shock to the system to read something with a high degree of intellectual curiosity married with keenly sharp analysis and historical understanding. It did make you realize how much of that intellectual curiosity has been lost across the usual institutions from the media to higher education in the last 20 years. The pursuit of truth has collapsed, with all the implications that come with it.
Keep up the good job. I keenly look forward to your next essay. As a classic enlightenment liberal / small 'c' conservative living in a deeply blue bubble that's found himself suddenly, without warning it seems, on the wrong side of history, I will also say for all the moaning of the horrendous impacts of the social media age, one of the upshots is that it's also allowed for the disenfranchised resistance scattered across the world to find each other and enjoy each other's thoughts. Social media and technological advancement may have allowed a greater degree of totalitarian control, but it also makes resistance much easier, as substack shows.
I became a subscriber after reading the virtual v. physicals essay. It brought such clarity to the current divide and the gnostic essay was equally fantastic. Thank you for allowing these essays to be read without a subscription. I subscribed after being blown away by these posts.
Just don't stop. I have no doubt you're worth a thousand times the monthly dime I'm paying, and I'll keep doing it as long as you find the time and energy to talk to us. Thank you from Romania.
Beautifully written and expressed. You have a great talent and a great mind. I am happy to have found you and become a subscribing member. Keep up the great work!
There is a light of hope that I have been clutching since I found Substack and writers like you. I am getting the word out. My only fear is that Substack as a business succumbs to the money offering to be acquired by Blackstone and then get sucked into the corporatist globalist maw. It would be awesome if the Substack business structure was an ESOP or otherwise allowed some ownership shares to be offered to the content contributors.
Thank you for your beautiful descriptive critique of Washington DC and it’s debauched denizens. Writers are often insatiable readers, any book recommendations from you or my fellow commenters are most welcome. Thank you for your courage in writing these essays, and your prudence in using a nom de plume
I love The Upheaval! Thank you for being here. All that you have said resonates deeply with me. Its why I come to the Stack. For some sanity. Your writing along with so many other wonderful and talented writers that I have found here actually gives me comfort in these troubling times.
Happy one-year anniversary to you contributing on Substack! Very optimistic piece today, including some instructive condemnation of DC to energize your readers. Together we move forward even as the political class accelerates in the opposite direction.
This morning I was reading your note to my wife and when I repeated verbally to her your observation that "The most important thing I'd like to try to express is the sense of meaning and joy that I've found comes from being free to write things that I believe to be true," it brought a surprise tear to my eye.
Our collective desire for writing and reading something close to the truth may be why more and more of us are breaking with the mental structures imposed on us and why we might, indeed, be about to begin a "genuine philosophical and political renaissance."
I don't even know how I found your writing, only a few weeks ago. I would be a paid subscriber if I were making more than $19/hr. Reading this post, I find myself so very glad for you, and I want you to know your writing helps increase my faith in my fellow Americans, and makes me considerably more hopeful about our nation. If things change economically for me for the better, I will certainly step up with more than words, and thank you too for encouraging us to speak up too.
in the recent interview by Alexander Beiner on the rebelwisdom.substack platform you mentioned China today being "a very low trust society, which is the case in almost every country that has endured communism".
What is the evidence for this? Have there been e. g. comparative investigations in, say the former GDR versus Western Germany?
I was referred to your Substack by Rod Dreher over at The American Conservative. I have never read anything on here before nor have I ever subscribed to any online blog...until today. I read what you wrote on Aristotle's description of the democratized mob being akin to a monarch and it was this sentence that made me click the subscribe button:
""If you ever wonder why something you said that was fine 72 hours ago is now an unredeemably racist, sexist, excommunicable offense, it’s because the disembodied Swarm Pope, who leads the People’s Democratic Priesthood of All Believers, crowd-sourced it from the swirling Id of the mob on Twitter while you weren’t looking." What a great sentence! Authentic intellectualism combined with fresh, clever writing is rare and delightful. Thank you for your work!
I just found out I share a Substack birthday with Paul Kingsnorth, so here's a shout-out to him.
https://paulkingsnorth.substack.com/p/an-anniversary-gift
I first came across your substack through a reference to it in the substack of a British writer, Ed West. The first essay I read was like having a glass of cold water thrown in my face, but in a good way. It was shock to the system to read something with a high degree of intellectual curiosity married with keenly sharp analysis and historical understanding. It did make you realize how much of that intellectual curiosity has been lost across the usual institutions from the media to higher education in the last 20 years. The pursuit of truth has collapsed, with all the implications that come with it.
Keep up the good job. I keenly look forward to your next essay. As a classic enlightenment liberal / small 'c' conservative living in a deeply blue bubble that's found himself suddenly, without warning it seems, on the wrong side of history, I will also say for all the moaning of the horrendous impacts of the social media age, one of the upshots is that it's also allowed for the disenfranchised resistance scattered across the world to find each other and enjoy each other's thoughts. Social media and technological advancement may have allowed a greater degree of totalitarian control, but it also makes resistance much easier, as substack shows.
I became a subscriber after reading the virtual v. physicals essay. It brought such clarity to the current divide and the gnostic essay was equally fantastic. Thank you for allowing these essays to be read without a subscription. I subscribed after being blown away by these posts.
Just don't stop. I have no doubt you're worth a thousand times the monthly dime I'm paying, and I'll keep doing it as long as you find the time and energy to talk to us. Thank you from Romania.
Beautifully written and expressed. You have a great talent and a great mind. I am happy to have found you and become a subscribing member. Keep up the great work!
There is a light of hope that I have been clutching since I found Substack and writers like you. I am getting the word out. My only fear is that Substack as a business succumbs to the money offering to be acquired by Blackstone and then get sucked into the corporatist globalist maw. It would be awesome if the Substack business structure was an ESOP or otherwise allowed some ownership shares to be offered to the content contributors.
Thank you for your beautiful descriptive critique of Washington DC and it’s debauched denizens. Writers are often insatiable readers, any book recommendations from you or my fellow commenters are most welcome. Thank you for your courage in writing these essays, and your prudence in using a nom de plume
I love The Upheaval! Thank you for being here. All that you have said resonates deeply with me. Its why I come to the Stack. For some sanity. Your writing along with so many other wonderful and talented writers that I have found here actually gives me comfort in these troubling times.
Happy one-year anniversary to you contributing on Substack! Very optimistic piece today, including some instructive condemnation of DC to energize your readers. Together we move forward even as the political class accelerates in the opposite direction.
This morning I was reading your note to my wife and when I repeated verbally to her your observation that "The most important thing I'd like to try to express is the sense of meaning and joy that I've found comes from being free to write things that I believe to be true," it brought a surprise tear to my eye.
Our collective desire for writing and reading something close to the truth may be why more and more of us are breaking with the mental structures imposed on us and why we might, indeed, be about to begin a "genuine philosophical and political renaissance."
I always did like long-shots.
I don't even know how I found your writing, only a few weeks ago. I would be a paid subscriber if I were making more than $19/hr. Reading this post, I find myself so very glad for you, and I want you to know your writing helps increase my faith in my fellow Americans, and makes me considerably more hopeful about our nation. If things change economically for me for the better, I will certainly step up with more than words, and thank you too for encouraging us to speak up too.
I love that writing your Substack articles gives you the sense of breathing fresh mountain air.
Reading your columns gives me the same sense. I'm deeply grateful.
Dear Mr. Lyons,
in the recent interview by Alexander Beiner on the rebelwisdom.substack platform you mentioned China today being "a very low trust society, which is the case in almost every country that has endured communism".
What is the evidence for this? Have there been e. g. comparative investigations in, say the former GDR versus Western Germany?
I was referred to your Substack by Rod Dreher over at The American Conservative. I have never read anything on here before nor have I ever subscribed to any online blog...until today. I read what you wrote on Aristotle's description of the democratized mob being akin to a monarch and it was this sentence that made me click the subscribe button:
""If you ever wonder why something you said that was fine 72 hours ago is now an unredeemably racist, sexist, excommunicable offense, it’s because the disembodied Swarm Pope, who leads the People’s Democratic Priesthood of All Believers, crowd-sourced it from the swirling Id of the mob on Twitter while you weren’t looking." What a great sentence! Authentic intellectualism combined with fresh, clever writing is rare and delightful. Thank you for your work!
Keep up the good work N.S. Lyons.
I really enjoy your essays, where it seems new doors of knowledge are opened every single time.
So thanks for challenging, engaging and helping your readers in making sense of the current era.
You've given us all an incredible amount of food for thought. Thank you.
I found you via Rebel Wisdom, who I recommend to all Upheavalists