Critical theory bulldozes all the complexities of history, education, and communities into a world of good guys and bad guys, oppressors and oppressed. And in doing so, it makes it nearly impossible to deal with the actual issues of denied opportunities, prejudiced expectations, and instances of real racism that need to be addressed. Most [...]
A nation is a complex entity. Justice, one of its animating principles and the end of government, gives a nation direction and serves as the basis for all laws in its society. Thus, when a society no longer possesses a common view of justice it inevitably splits into faction. It often happens within societies [...]
The fusionism of the past has been outmoded not due to some notion of progressive change but because the libertarian perspective it promotes is fundamentally flawed. Acknowledging the failure of fusionism is the first step to ensuring that conservatism may long endure. I recently had a rather extended debate with a libertarian-minded friend who [...]
As Albert Jay Nock argued in the 1930s, and Robert Nisbet in the 1960s, the state plays a zero-sum game: It desires to assume all power over society, even to the point of taking the place of the Church as the glue that holds all together, and thus it renders society obsolete in the [...]
As this strange summer of a strange year comes to an end, I am reminded of ordinary realities and experiences that now appear in a new light. At our college, classes started back up, and I cannot recall a happier sense of new beginning, partly because this, too, has been defamiliarized. On Sunday of [...]
Though less poetic than Russell Kirk, Robert Nisbet has as much right to be considered a “father of post-war conservatism” as does his Michiganian ally—especially given the timing of his eleven tenets of conservatism. Indeed, his ideas about society and the social relations of man are thoughtful and inspiring. Though conservatism arose as a [...]
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 [...]
The idea that a second lockdown, more severe than the first and on a national basis, would not cause more damage than it prevents is sheer fantasy. COVID poses health risks to a particular portion of the population. Lockdowns pose a risk to everybody—both economically and physically. Many people have talked about the death [...]
Thomas Hobbes’ morbid outlook holds that there are no goods higher than material success and life. People are reduced to the mediocrity of their whims and desires. The COVID-19 disaster represents the triumph of the Leviathan nightmare. People used to face challenges and risks to obtain higher goals in life. They understood that there [...]
Uberto Pasolini’s “Still Life” is a haunting, original, and moving tribute to human worth and self-sacrificial love at the street level. It is a beautiful, quiet film that packs an emotional and philosophical punch far beyond its weight. Always on the lookout for a film that is better than the formulaic, ideologically-driven entertainment that [...]
In the Western world today many people, especially among the elites, are quite willing to forfeit community life, while others are actively working to destroy it. We are witnessing—perhaps even unthinkingly participating in—the suicide of our culture. When I read the news headline, it suddenly all seemed clear. The story reported that new positive [...]
If we truly seek to solve the problem of diminished community and isolation, we are not going to be able to fill that void with thousands of Facebook friends or Twitter followers. That void can only be filled by a recommitment to the principles of authentic friendship that are best built in person with [...]
As the coronavirus lockdowns stretch into months, the apparent success of the remote-work experiment is fraying at the edges. Lack of personal contact has worsened the situation of an already polarized and fragmented society, and the idea that everything can be made virtual has been proven a myth. As the lockdowns swept the nation, [...]
As states and localities battle over issues from how or even whether to re-open schools, all the way to defining the circumstances under which small children will be required to wear masks, a devolution of decision-making is certainly welcome. Hybrid homeschools can provide many more families with a way to both get past virus-related [...]