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This moment, among other things, may call for something as banal as looking around, embracing and underscoring the figures and images that capture what is enduringly good about normal American life.
The Soviet regime is formally gone, but the legacy of its formidable security apparatus lives on. There was never a “decommunization” process in the wake of the USSR’s collapse. The vast majority of those who had participated in its structures and atrocities escaped punishment, and many of them created political careers in the post-communist era. People like Vladimir Putin were deeply marked by their socialization within that apparatus.
Our Constitution’s carefully designed processes for democratic self-governance, and the means and mechanisms for ensuring accountability, are evaded and eroded. In his 2021 book “Purchasing Submission,” Philip Hamburger reveals the many hidden ways this evasion occurs—through spending conditions and contractual terms, yes; but also through “dangerously benevolent” nudges, incentives, intermediaries, accreditation, licensing, permits, and permissions.
In some ways, the central problem of America has become liquidity: wealth, energy, and the self all have lost their solidity. The flow of money has had a profoundly corrosive effect on our financial institutions and also our social ones. But there’s no going back to a golden age. Only by reinvigorating our modes of association can we successfully address the pathologies brought on by the quest for financial (not economic) independence.
In Belief and Cult: Rethinking Roman Religion, Jacob Mackey argues that the ancient Romans’ participation in polytheistic rituals necessarily implied that they believed in their gods. But his discussion of Roman religion would have been even more persuasive if he had spent more time discussing ancient documents and less time explaining modern theories of belief and practice.
Though often unconventional and concerned with ideas outside the mainstream of contemporary political conversations, Michael Oakeshott’s reflections on politics and human conduct continue to provide a profound and humane source of inspiration for western liberalism. In an age in which freedom and individuality are increasingly under threat, his vision of a flourishing human life—discovering and developing individual character in the midst of traditional practices—remains more relevant and necessary than ever.
Russia is no “Christian powerhouse.” That narrative is little more than an easily falsifiable propaganda campaign by its kleptocratic governing class. Russia struggles not only to preserve its ancient faith tradition—in spite of significant government expenditures to the Orthodox Church—but also to protect and preserve its families in the face of substance abuse, domestic violence, and unmitigated cronyism.
“I want to give people hope, people living with mental illness as well as family members of people living with mental illness, that not only can they survive their illness, but they can also reach their greatest potential. Sometimes, in fact, they reach their greatest potential not despite the illness, but because of the illness.”
The great paradox of late-stage feminism is that it attempts to establish women on equal footing with men by robbing them of their life-giving nature. It’s time to reject this damaging and dangerous lie. Fertility is not a limitation. It is a gift.
Aristotle thought that contemplation was man’s highest activity, and that the virtues developed in other aspects of life prepared one for this activity. Indeed, as Plato predicted, wrestling prepared me for the contemplation of truth. Thankfully, I did not need a perfectly intact spine to do so.
One of the vital experiences of which the current pandemic robbed us for too long is the dinner party with friends. Reading about food, too, can be a pleasure in its own right, whether one tries out daring new recipes or not. My small kitchen library has a few notable classics that are as interesting for their authors’ voices as for their instruction in preparing dishes.
Humans are frail creatures, depending on much beyond our control. Those who do not recognize this have never seen their father watch the clouds, or had livestock die, or waited as the ultrasound searches for a heartbeat that will never be heard. God is good, and he loves what he has created, but we are dust, and he allows the winds to blow.
The Netflix adaptation of The Queen’s Gambit and the original version are based on two radically different visions of the human person. They bring the reader or viewer to one of two endpoints: either we recognize the importance of making the best choices and inherit a position of moral responsibility, or we face the despair of living in a world without moral agency.
When I interviewed people at Portland’s protests, I found that they rarely hold the views they are attacked for. They are usually not filled with hate, as their opponents believe. However, they often consume one-sided media and are victims of confirmation bias. They believe they know what their adversaries support, and are ready to fight to oppose it.
If the state seeks to protect the human body, it should do so in view of a more ultimate flourishing of the whole human person, for the sake of a civic society that promotes the free pursuit of spiritual goods. In a public health crisis, the ways we pursue these goods can be altered temporarily, but if the alterations threaten to radically alter the long-term pursuit of these goods, we must question these new policies.
Soviet misunderstandings of the market were replicated as misunderstandings of the family—with damaging and dehumanizing consequences. Though Soviet family policy has mercifully ended, it is still worthwhile to examine its central ideas, because they live on today in Western family policy.
A crisis like a pandemic forces citizens to confront what they hold in common. But the coronavirus has revealed that many, whether boomer or millennial, do not even see themselves as citizens—as participating in and being partially responsible for the common good.
Physician-assisted suicide pithily and precisely names the act of a doctor prescribing a lethal drug at his terminally ill patient’s request. However, its advocates reject this name and propose euphemisms in its place, such as “death with dignity” and “end of life option.” These amount to advertisements for the disputed practice and ought to be rejected as imprecise, inaccurate, and jargonistic.
Christianity is so much more solid, and real, and human, than the “spiritual, but not religious” imitations of today. Christian faith touches every aspect of our lives—material, social, cultural. It does so because our God was born as a human baby in a stable and nurtured by a teenaged girl named Mary.
We stewards of the western tradition have good answers for what makes life worth living. If only we could be imaginative enough to give new voice to those ancient truths and avoid the stultifying fate of pampered souls.
I had done This Thing for the simple reason that I felt I couldn’t be a single mother—because I was desperately scared of being ostracized by my community, judged for my irresponsible fornication.
One might expect a book by Ben Shapiro to be about the task of “owning the libs” or “drinking liberal tears.” In fact, the reader comes away with a starkly different impression. In The Right Side of History, Shapiro argues that the cultural and political malaise of contemporary America is due to its being severed from its Judeo-Christian roots.
Christianity is so much more solid, and real, and human, than the “spiritual, but not religious” imitations of today. Christian faith touches every aspect of our lives—material, social, cultural. It does so because our God was born as a human baby in a stable and nurtured by a teenaged girl named Mary.
Aristotle described three types of friendship. In a season of increased polarization and even calls for incivility from national political leaders, perhaps we need a fourth.