Brownstone Institute is thrilled to begin the new year with a new and absolutely essential program: Brownstone Fellowships. These offer support for public intellectuals – researchers, writers, speakers, journalists – who defy imposed conventions of thought and endanger their careers, at least in the short term. This is particularly needed during a crisis or emergency, real or imagined, when the pressure to conform grows very intense.
The last 30 months make the point. With few but very noble exceptions, most of the dissidents during the most extreme policies of our lifetimes came from outside the mainstream of academic, journalism, and technology. They have faced career disruption, doxing, cancellation, and worse. Far from being rewarded for having been right, they were alienated and excluded from their communities of support.
Intellectual sanctuary is always necessary, as a means of personal protection but also as a means of keeping the flame of truth lit even when every institution seeks to extinguish it. That flame can be a light unto the whole world.
For this reason, Brownstone Institute has begun a new fellowship program as the next stage of our development. They are designed to provide that sanctuary and support, with a particular focus on writing and research as it pertains to the post-Covid crisis in the world today. Areas of specialization include public health, economics, science, technology, moral philosophy, and contemporary history.
Fellowships are awarded for the calendar year and provide financial support as well as moral support and community recognition. The program has begun immediately on a small scale but will grow over time as resources permit.
We are extremely grateful for the support for this program already provided by generous donors and we welcome you to join them! Together we can expand this program and thus grow the ranks of truth tellers and critical thinkers, even in times of conformity and censorship.
The first seven fellows are hereby announced. These are their statements of gratitude to donors.
Brownstone in a short time has emerged as a marquee resource for high quality science and debate. The people who write for Brownstone and who participate are staggering in depth and breadth and I remain humbled by the exchanges. These are people who want to learn the truth about what our world went through in the last 3 years and we are uncovering answers by continuous scholarship made possible by the Brownstone forum. Not one COVID policy has worked from February 2020 to now. I wish to thank your donors for making this possible for me and all here and I hope they stand firm for Brownstone has set the standard and your leadership has been profound. I know you as a friend yet as a scholar and deep intellect and I am always learning from you. Your mind is different. You are very kind but in a special way. You do care. Thank you for what you did with Brownstone and all who help in making it possible. The world needs a ‘Brownstone’ where the exchange of information and ideas can be free and unfettered yet of the highest, most trustworthy, open, transparent, and explicit quality. ~ Paul Elias Alexander
I am truly humbled to be given the opportunity to continue doing what is no doubt the most important work I have ever been called on to do, in conjunction with by far the most impressive set of thinkers I have ever been associated with. And, again as Paul suggests, it is your intellectual and spiritual generosity and never-ending devotion to the truth that has set the tone for the project. I don’t know if we’ll be able to create the much-needed parallel structures in time to safeguard the essential human dignity of our children and grandchildren. But I know we must try. And I know that Brownstone is leading the way in this essential struggle. ~ Tom Harrington
I am very grateful for the fellowship from Brownstone Institute. Jeffrey Tucker has been on the barricades for more than two years, courageously and effectively leading the fight against officialdom’s efforts to lock down humanity. As its mission statement declares, Brownstone’s purpose is “to point the way toward a better understanding of essential freedoms – including intellectual freedom and free speech – and the proper means to preserve essential rights even in times of crisis.” I appreciate that the fellowship will help me fight in this noble cause – a battle which the friends of freedom cannot afford to lose. I’m looking forward to devoting much of the time on my Brownstone fellowship to make it hot for plenty of bureaucratic and political rascals. Hearty thanks to all the individuals whose donations are enabling Brownstone to support folks who are fighting the rising tide of oppression in America and beyond. ~ Jim Bovard
I am honored and grateful to be part of Brownstone Institute as a writer and a Fellow. Brownstone has been a lifesaver and sanity preserver for me and so many others, as we try to navigate our way through the insanity, inhumanity and upheaval of the Covid era and beyond. When so many institutions I used to trust (media, academia, medicine) have abandoned basic principles of truth and ethics, Brownstone stands out as one of the only apolitical organizations truly dedicated to championing basic freedoms and upholding intellectual and moral integrity. The scholars, thinkers, scientists, writers, journalists and all contributors to the Brownstone community are among the best and brightest in the world, and I will continue to work hard to deserve a place among them. Brownstone’s support will allow me to pursue the truth about what happened in response to Covid and engage in conversations and debates about how best to build a better framework for the future. ~ Debbie Lerman
I am so deeply honored to be a 2023 Fellow of Brownstone Institute. Without question, the generosity of the donors who have made this possible is simply tremendous. I am quite grateful, indeed. The fact that you have been able to appoint Fellows when Brownstone is still so young is a true testament to your unwavering dedication and drive to make our society, and the world, a better place. In my opinion, the scholars that write for Brownstone are some of the brightest and bravest minds. I am so proud and moved to be part of this. I look forward to being a Brownstone Fellow, and I thank you and the donors for this exquisite honor. ~ Bobbie Anne Cox
I am honored and so grateful to be included among the Brownstone fellows. After losing my job at the University last year, this fellowship will help me continue my work on public policy and covid-related matters. I plan to use the fellowship support to begin a two-year project focused on policy reform proposals of our federal public health agencies (CDC, FDA, NIH). This project will engage many of the other fellows, senior scholars, and writers at Brownstone. Brownstone Institute has been an oasis of sanity during the pandemic, and a reliable source for accurate information and critical thought during these turbulent times. I am very grateful to the benefactors who have provided generous support for this fellowship. It’s an honor to be included in this courageous and brilliant group of scholars and writers. ~ Aaron Kheriaty
I am so honoured to be part of this group of esteemed thinkers that it’s taken me a while to put my thoughts into words. It feels almost irreverent to me to speak to the specific ways we have been shaken over the last two years. But, at the same time, something miraculous has happened: a group of the world’s brightest, most courageous voices is breaking through the silence to speak to the atrocities of our time. Brownstone Institute leads the charge and I am so honoured to be able to contribute to its efforts and endurance in any way I can. For the fellowship, I plan to undertake a book project, a collection of essays on lessons learned from the last two years, tentatively titled If We Only Knew: Essays on Regret, Persistence and Hope from the Freedom Crisis We Never Saw Coming. It will focus on themes to do with how we failed, how we keep going, and how we can take an active role in envisioning and creating a better future. It won’t be about how we are, for example, getting the data wrong, but more about the crisis of values and ideas that led us to do so. For some reason, over the last year, I have thought a lot about Walt Whitman who, feeling his own 19th century America was in crisis, wrote “We had best look our times and lands searchingly in the face, like a physician diagnosing some deep disease.” My hope for this book is that it will do just that. I hope it will encourage us to confront our own malady, our crisis of conscience and the self-destructive traits that humanity seems to keep circling to again and again. A heartfelt thank you to Jeffrey and to Brownstone’s generous donors. And, to my fellow fellows, I am deeply honoured to be in your company. ~ Julie Ponnese