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Is the fearless pursuit of truth sufficient to form the basis of a new university? Is it enough to be always in pursuit of truth? Or does one hope, along the way, to find, keep, and act on some of it? Is a commitment to truth and freedom in the abstract sufficient to ground an academic community, or is something else—a larger tradition—required?
For Christians, UATX’s educational model poses a dilemma. On the one hand, guided by the truths of revelation, how could Christians endorse an institution that eschews all claims to prior knowledge? On the other hand, is there a strategic advantage to allying with non-sectarian schools when the bulk of American universities are unyielding partisans of secularism?
The question is not whether diversity is desirable or undesirable. Most of us can appreciate that there is value in diversity. The real question concerns what price we are willing to pay for it.
Inflation is on the rise in the United States. With it, there are politicians now arguing that "greedy businessmen" are to blame for it. This is not only a misleading notion but also a dangerous one, as it could end up leading to policies as destructive as the ones implemented in countries like Venezuela.
The majority of parents are very angry about everything that has happened—not just the masking, not just the closing schools, but the combination of all of that. And it’s the fact that the people on the school boards, and Democratic politicians, by and large, just refuse to admit that this was wrong, and that it had consequences. And when they refuse to do that, why on earth would anyone vote for them again?
A nation could recover from the loss of scores of men, as the twentieth century’s postwar societies all did. But it has no future without women and children and the moral order of the family and society that these not only represent but constitute. Civilization hinges on women.
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.
For the nineteenth-century Italian Jesuit Luigi Taparelli, social justice is not about redistributive justice by government fiat. Nor is it linked to some idea of absolute social or economic equality, as in progressive parlance. Instead, social justice according to Taparelli must be grounded in the principle of subsidiarity and linked to a theological understanding of economics.
Among the ruins of family and faith, amid gender deconstruction, surrounded by endless intersectional identities, and with countless constructed categories being hastily erected in their place, where can a sure and stable identity be found?
Millennials and Gen Zers have been subjected to decades of social messaging that the good life is predicated on fostering unbounded dreams, reaching for ever-towering heights of achievement, and “changing the world.” Two new books push back against this narrative, urging readers to make a stand against the chaos and vapidity of our world by delineating a small corner of it that will demand our care and attention, making choices that limit yet enrich our existence.
The collapse of traditional, external anchors of identity—perhaps most obviously those of religion, nation, and family—explains the attraction of the turn inward. The rise of technology feeds the notion that we can bend nature to our will, that the world is just so much raw, plastic material from which we can make whatever meaning or reality we choose. We no longer think of ourselves as subject to the world’s fixed nature, or of it as having an objective authority or meaning. We are the ones with power, and we are the ones who give the world significance.
We are not isolated individuals, free to create our own moral codes and obligations based on our preferences, desires, self-identifications. We enter a world already tied up with pre-existing relationships, duties, and obligations. These are basic principles of conservatism. Given the drastic environmental changes awaiting future generations, conservatives ought to start considering climate change a top priority.
The law must stand above the powerful, and we should worry when the law is suspended or disregarded. But where is the law to be found? Most of the law consists of important fictions which live in the minds of lawyers. But what makes the fiction plausible? And how is the law’s benefit to be assessed unless we measure it against fixed, non-conventional, non-fictional standards of justice?
Given that there are natural sex differences, it’s no surprise that those differences include some tendencies that can cause problems. This is true for both men and women. Yet the tenor of contemporary academic discussions about men, such as in the discourse about “toxic masculinity,” is much more negative. Properly understood, however, the problematic tendencies within the male condition actually present opportunities for virtue. Thus, they can form the foundation of a positive conception of manhood centered on the virtues of gentlemanliness, moral courage, and chastity.
Veronica Roberts Ogle’s 2020 book, Politics and the Earthly City in Augustine’s City of God, shows that Augustine’s critique of the earthly takes place within a broader sacramental vision. He aims at purging amor sui and orienting it toward amor Dei, cleansing our souls of the lust for securitas. Politics can only be improved by personal responses to grace—which no political institution can hope to generate. Improvement of political spaces must occur beyond politics.
Why do we choose to believe in a framework where suffering and violence are the most fundamental reality of the world? How can pain and grief coexist with the small joys that we experience daily?
Perhaps the end of the pandemic is not a matter of eliminating COVID-19 but rather coming to terms with our own mortality. We need to learn how to survive and thrive in the pandemic, even as we try to mitigate the effects of the virus. For guidance, we can turn to Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilyich, who was delivered from his anxious, tormented bondage by conquering his fear of death and adopting selfless concern for others.
Anyone who has spent his life in the academy, as I have, has reason to keep his mind open and his interests broad—namely, friends who write. My professional association over the last dozen years with the Witherspoon Institute and Princeton’s James Madison Program has introduced me to a dazzling array of brilliant and productive minds. No, I don’t want my writing friends to stop. They have given me much to ponder, and I look forward to what they will all write next.
In the first part of this essay, I showed how the CCP persecutes individuals, and discussed the CCP’s structural control of the government and the nation. In this second part, I will compare the U.S. democratic system with the CCP regime to more clearly demonstrate how one-party rule results in authoritarianism.
The CCP regularly employs violent tactics to persecute and silence its opponents and operates with impunity as a shadow power. China’s political structures enable it to maintain monolithic control of the nation. By discussing my own experience under the CCP and shedding light on its opaque structures, I hope to show that comparing the CCP’s authoritarian regime with democratic governance is like comparing barbarism with civilization: there is no comparison.
Democracy Rules (2021) is Jan-Werner Müller’s attempt to explain populist authoritarianism, while at the same time setting out what he believes are the true pillars of liberal democracy. But he does so, understanding that democracy always operates under the handicap of uncertainty.
Freedom is certainly a value conservatives cherish, but its application has limits. It is not conservative to assert an individual right to act without considering the welfare of his community. Conservatives should choose to get vaccinated and boosted because doing poses almost no risks to their health and is in their community’s interest.
Today’s progressive nationalism is secular, yet it also relies on popular adherence to the civil religion of the left. There are two prominent manifestations of this civil religion—critical race theory’s (CRT) philosophy of history and the LGBTQ movement’s anthropology. We see evidence of this secularized-yet-religious nationalism in many places—media, bureaucracy, Hollywood—but perhaps it is most readily apparent in education.
Precisely because our demographic future is uncertain, we should be even more careful and consider all scenarios. Many children grow up surrounded by a high number of adults, but with very few children in their family environment. Many regions, especially rural ones, will begin to run into problems in providing basic public goods, such as universities or hospitals, which require certain minimum sizes to operate with reasonable efficiency. The housing market, higher education, and electoral distribution will all be dramatically impacted by these demographic changes.