The Gadfly

Skewering the absurdities of our age. Making sense of the ideas behind them.

About Frederick Alexander

I try to say what’s actually going on rather than what we’re all supposed to pretend is going on. Conservative by disposition, liberal by principle, fond of irony.

I write about fashionable delusions and moral confusions, and take a particular interest in how progressive orthodoxy has captured Western institutions and corrupted the language.

Start here: Postmodernism: The Idea That Ate Itself

What people are saying:

“Frederick cuts through fashionable narratives with clarity and precision, exposing the ideas and incentives driving today’s cultural confusion. Sharp, principled work that has become essential reading.”
– Lucy Tabrizi, writer, Notes from the Ruins

“A propagandist and a fucking idiot.”
– Freddie de Boer, Substack bestseller and Marxist

gadfly (n.) an insect that bites livestock. Also: a person who irritates, criticises, or provokes politicians and authority figures to spur change, accountability, or critical thought.

Socrates was known as “the gadfly of Athens” because he made a career of needling those in power with his questions, eventually earning the death sentence.