About John Horvat

John Horvat II is Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative and a scholar, researcher, educator, international speaker, and author of the book Return to Order, as well as the author of hundreds of published essays. He lives in Spring Grove, Pennsylvania, where he is the vice president of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property.

College and the Need for a Calling

By |2021-07-13T15:37:11-05:00July 13th, 2021|Categories: Education, John Horvat|

Despite the oft-repeated mantra, college is not for everyone. Perhaps it is time to revive the traditional notion of a person’s calling: Young people need to turn to God and pray for His help to find meaning and purpose inside a world that rejects both. For students contemplating college this fall, the time has come [...]

Do Virtue and High Culture Clash?

By |2021-06-18T15:15:03-05:00June 21st, 2021|Categories: Culture, John Horvat|

The rigorous practice of virtue is often presented as austere and unattractive. Virtuous people do not seem to enjoy life and suppress the desires that make most people happy, appearing as unpolished individuals who abstain from beautiful and delightful things as the manifestations of a corrupt and sinful world. But is this view accurate? Modern [...]

Why Can’t They Make Beautiful Windmills?

By |2021-05-21T12:54:32-05:00May 21st, 2021|Categories: Beauty, Civilization, Culture, Economics, Environmentalism, John Horvat, Technology|

No one wants these disproportional, ugly windmills. People don’t want their views obstructed. Even in a godless society, the modern cult of ugliness is so unnatural that human nature rebels against it. So why can’t they make beautiful windmills? Why must the industry insist upon these cold, depressing behemoths? A green new world is coming [...]

Is ‘Woke’ Broke? The Perils of Living in a Parallel Universe

By |2021-05-06T10:33:56-05:00May 9th, 2021|Categories: John Horvat, Language, Liberalism, Politics|

“Woke” is a doomed word since it expresses a distorted reality. It is based upon Critical Race Theory that frames the debate to favor a class-struggle narrative, dividing humanity into oppressors and oppressed. Like all Marxist lingo, “woke” deepens resentments instead of healing them. If there is any word guaranteed to enhance a conversation or [...]

Virgil’s “Aeneid” & the Value of Suffering

By |2021-04-12T17:48:33-05:00April 13th, 2021|Categories: Aeneid, Great Books, John Horvat, Virgil|

While painful, suffering can have good consequences and enrich our personal lives. Overcoming adversity can produce in us sentiments of satisfaction and fulfillment. When we confront tragedy with courage and honor, we experience a growth in character that stays with us for life. In Virgil’s Roman epic poem, The Aeneid, there is a famous scene [...]

The Failure of Meghan and Harry

By |2021-03-19T11:32:42-05:00March 18th, 2021|Categories: Aristocracy, England, John Horvat, Monarchy|

The role of Harry and Meghan, the former Duke and Duchess of Sussex, was to be the almost fairy-tale models for a world in need of elite leadership. They were called to embody all that is excellent in the British nation so that others might strive to imitate them. But they have utterly failed in [...]

Beyond Spoiled: Introducing the ‘Squishy Generation’

By |2021-03-08T11:18:28-06:00March 7th, 2021|Categories: Family, John Horvat|

School systems everywhere are alarmed by this squishy generation of hyper-pampered children who are unsure of themselves and unable to confront reality. They are a product of clueless, hyper-pampering parents, who confuse affection with preventing all suffering. There have always been parents who spare the rod and spoil the child. However, today’s hyper-protective parents have [...]

When No One Knows What Freedom Is, All Is Lost

By |2021-02-04T10:21:54-06:00February 7th, 2021|Categories: Freedom, John Horvat, Politics|

A confused notion of freedom leaves us with a polarized and fragmented society in which everything is allowed in the name of a concept that we can no longer define or classify. But the interplay of positive and negative freedom, properly understood, allows society to function harmoniously and with the least coercion. In our polarized [...]

How Liberals Turned Freedom Into Tyranny

By |2021-01-17T11:23:58-06:00January 17th, 2021|Categories: Books, Freedom, John Horvat|

Ryszard Legutko’s “The Cunning of Freedom” pierces through the darkness of today’s shallow notions of freedom and exposes the dangers of continuing on the present course. The author indicates a metaphysical path whereby postmodern man might find that truth that will set him free. The Cunning of Freedom: Saving the Self in an Age of [...]

Pierre Cardin: The Death of a Man Who Destroyed Fashion

By |2021-01-07T16:01:15-06:00January 7th, 2021|Categories: Beauty, Culture, John Horvat|

Pierre Cardin destroyed fashion by introducing chaotic, irrational, bizarre, and immodest themes to his clothing lines. He is a product of postmodern thought, which denies all universal narratives and meaning, reducing life to the limitless freedom to create one’s own reality. This is a life without God or restraint that ends up enslaving people to [...]

Three Gift Suggestions for an Unordinary Christmas

By |2020-12-11T12:07:06-06:00December 11th, 2020|Categories: Christianity, Christmas, Gifts for Imaginative Conservatives, John Horvat|

Gift suggestions for this Christmas can’t be ordinary. They must reflect our upside-down times. There are three classes of gifts that I would recommend. These categories would enhance our dignity, expand our notions of the possible, and increase our identity as Christians. This isn’t an ordinary Christmas. In many places, officials are trying to steal [...]

Can “Community Groups” Replace the Police?

By |2020-08-20T15:32:09-05:00August 23rd, 2020|Categories: Civilization, Community, Government, John Horvat, Modernity, Politics|

Because the classic idea of a community that once existed in America has been swallowed up by the present culture, to demand “community-driven” solutions to remedy police problems is an empty—and dangerous—proposition. The defund-the-police movement clearly defines its goal. Its activists believe police officers are agents of violence inside the community. Their solution is to [...]

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