The Law and the Machine

By |2026-03-08T21:21:11-05:00March 8th, 2026|Categories: Christianity, Civilization, Natural Law, Nature of Man, Technology|

The machine we face today is an all-encompassing technological, cultural, and economic system oppressing us—driven by profit and a misguided ambition. In the name of public health and progress we have allowed ourselves to be enslaved to the machine. You will have a window in your head. Not even your future will be a mystery [...]

“The Speech”: Maintaining Sanity in an Insane World

By |2026-01-06T19:59:27-06:00January 6th, 2026|Categories: Civilization, Culture, Forrest McDonald, Hope, Imagination, Timeless Essays, Wisdom|

I propose to address the question, how does one survive—and I mean survive as something—in a world that may not? How does one remain sane in a world that is insane; how does one live without fear in a world in which the only certainty is that nothing is certain? "The Speech" was addressed in [...]

The Shield of Aeneas: Memory and History in Virgil’s “Aeneid”

By |2025-12-01T20:37:01-06:00December 1st, 2025|Categories: Aeneas, Aeneid, Civilization, Conservatism, Great Books, History, Paul Krause, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays, Virgil, Western Civilization|

The “Aeneid” was only possible because the Roman people had the memory and consciousness to make it possible. It is up to us to ensure that its living well of memory doesn’t dry up. Without it, the “Aeneid” will pass into the dustbin of history like the corpses of Priam and Pompey. The grandest image [...]

The Art of Political Fencing in an Age of Polarization

By |2025-11-19T12:26:05-06:00November 19th, 2025|Categories: Civil Society, Civilization, John Horvat, Liberalism, Morality, Politics, Senior Contributors|

In the present polarized climate, there is a constant battle between two ever-more irreconcilable sides. I think this is a good trend since the two parties do not live the fiction of getting along when the points of division are so great. I applaud any effort that results in moral clarity. It clears the air [...]

The Idea of the University & the Future of Civilization

By |2025-09-19T17:01:59-05:00September 19th, 2025|Categories: Civilization, Classical Education, Classical Learning, Classics, Joseph Pearce, Liberal Learning, Senior Contributors, Uncategorized, Western Civilization|

The disastrous and destructive consequences of reductionist and relativistic education can be seen in multifarious ways, all of which are made manifest in the decay and decomposition of the modern West. We are no longer able to think outside of narcissistic or ideological boxes; we are no longer able to love self-sacrificially. The following is [...]

To Stop School Shootings, We Must Reject Three Liberal Premises

By |2025-09-01T16:26:01-05:00September 1st, 2025|Categories: Catholicism, Civil Society, Civilization, Evil, John Horvat, Liberalism, Morality, Senior Contributors|

The Minneapolis killings prove that evil exists and hates good. The act was so heinous that Satan unmasks himself by showing his role in inspiring the shooter's hateful messages against the Catholic Church. Satan is real and working inside the postmodern world despite the liberal premise to the contrary. He showed his fiendish face at [...]

Craft, Vocation, and the Decline of the West

By |2025-08-31T18:28:39-05:00August 31st, 2025|Categories: Civilization, Conservatism, Culture, Labor/Work, Modernity, Timeless Essays, Western Civilization|

To counteract the disorder of a city engulfed by internal strife and upheaval, we in the West would do well to rediscover the true meaning of vocation. We may cultivate an abundant yield simply by applying the virtues we associate with the master craftsman—diligence, recognition of quality, and striving for mastery—to whatever we do, whether [...]

Augustine: A Saint for Eternity

By |2025-08-27T21:09:14-05:00August 27th, 2025|Categories: Aeneid, Catholicism, Civilization, Modernity, Paul Krause, Plutarch, Sainthood, St. Augustine, Thucydides, War|

Augustine passed on to us, and all posterity, prescient words of wisdom: that even in the most disconcerting and dark of times, beauty, compassion, truth, love, and happiness abound. When the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410, the city that had taken the world captive had fallen into captivity. The event was a transformative moment in [...]

The Intimate Art of Translation

By |2025-08-25T12:23:12-05:00August 25th, 2025|Categories: Civilization, David Deavel, Literature, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

It is an intimate art, the translation business. But it is the art of creatures like we humans, who live always on the border of matter and spirit, trying to marry together the infinite and the finite, the spiritual and the earthly, the eternal and the temporal. On January 11, 1940, the Italian writer and [...]

Decadence and Its Critics

By |2025-07-20T17:51:40-05:00July 20th, 2025|Categories: Civil Society, Civilization, Conservatism, Culture, Gleaves Whitney, Great Books, Jacques Barzun, Modernity, Timeless Essays, Western Civilization|

Decadence ultimately entails the process of falling away from the vision that orders man's relation to the divine, to the community, to the self, to nature. In the Western context, it signifies a lessening of the hold on the imagination of all that inspires human beings to be devout. Through the ages the death of [...]

Sit Up Straight & Take Note: Why Posture Matters

By |2025-07-08T09:36:57-05:00July 7th, 2025|Categories: Civil Society, Civilization, John Horvat, Senior Contributors, Virtue|

While slouching may not be sinful, it can create an atmosphere of disregard, carelessness, and sloth. It favors bad habits that may facilitate vice. Hence, people can combat these horrible consequences by living up to standards of propriety that favor effort and consideration in a well-ordered society. One great tragedy of radical individualism was the [...]

America’s Golden Age: A Return to the Permanent Things

By |2025-06-16T08:02:55-05:00June 15th, 2025|Categories: American Republic, Civil Society, Civilization, Common Good, Conservatism, Culture, Donald Trump, Goodness, Liberalism, Truth|

The American people have endured a dark age. But today they are choosing courage over comfort. Order over anarchy. Truth over technocracy. And in doing so, they are giving birth to a new moment: A chance to rebuild a republic where men are strong, women are cherished, children are protected, and God is honored. We [...]

Correcting Superiors From Below

By |2025-06-13T09:15:47-05:00June 13th, 2025|Categories: Civil Society, Civilization, Equality|

To correct their superior, inferiors must invoke another superior—a superior superior. Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, or the golden rule, is an ideal of equality, as is the precept of loving your neighbor as yourself. In the highest view, we hope for humans to treat one another as equals. [...]

Why We Don’t Trust the “Elites”

By |2025-06-03T10:35:46-05:00June 3rd, 2025|Categories: Civil Society, Civilization|

The solution to the problem of modern elitism is not the elimination of leadership but its reformation—the cultivation of stewardship elitism that positions leaders as servants of civilization rather than its masters. In a recent essay for The Free Press titled "Our elites don't deserve this much hatred," economist Tyler Cowen makes a characteristic defense of [...]

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