Timothy Carney’s book "Alienated America" tackles a crucial question that too few policymakers and news commentators even bother asking anymore: What is at the root of America’s contemporary cultural and social malaise? The short answer, according to Mr. Carney, is the deterioration of civil society. Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Other Places Collapse, [...]
The good mentor is virtually inseparable from the phenomenon of initiation that has always been understood as a crucial part of the rite of passage between one condition in life to another, a new and deeper community. In an age where mentors and rites of passage are being neglected, we should not forget the [...]
The good news is that we have to know only one thing, so life is basically simple. The bad news is that one thing is love, and that seems impossible to get right. Love is at the center of human life, for love fulfills our spiritual nature by uniting us to all that is.[1] [...]
It seems as if the cycle of Resentment and Revenge is so fundamental to human nature that it cannot be cured by humanistic solutions—but could it be countered by the theological virtues? What’s wrong with the world? Chesterton famously said, “I am, yours sincerely G.K. Chesterton.” However, two thinkers can help us understand the [...]
There was a time, decades ago when the world was divided between those who were online and offline. Rich people could afford the shiny new gadgets that connected them with everyone. Poor people were left in an analog wasteland on the other side of the digital divide. Social justice warriors of the time demanded [...]
If young people do not have a conscious philosophy, the philosophy of relativism is the default. And if relativism is a noxious gas and our young people are the canaries, then it is only a matter of time until our whole society succumbs to the effects of those fumes. Walker Percy once wrote that [...]
I regretted having children because children fundamentally altered my entire life in a way I never expected they would. For literally the first time in my life I was afraid of the future and unsure of what would happen next. I had willfully, foolishly, unthinkingly, given hostages to fortune. It was just the two [...]
We Americans are taught to maintain an inviolable spatial envelope, or imaginary bubble, around ourselves. But does our desire for individualism allow us to experience the world in all its concrete fullness? Like all Americans, even those with gypsy blood, my experience of space was determined by individualism. In the third grade, my desk, [...]
Studies confirm that traditional families result in less delinquency, criminality, illness, drug use, sexual promiscuity and stress. The best family policy is carried out by the family itself. Those who need the “family” aid offered by liberal policymakers are not truly “families.” As the next national elections loom on the horizon, many liberal candidates [...]
Oh, love to some is like a cloud, To some as strong as steel, For some a way of living, For some a way to feel, And some say love is holding on And some say letting go, And some say love is everything And some say they don’t know. John Denver (Perhaps [...]
We see that the creation of one’s own opinions is to a large degree a community affair. According to James Bryce, the individual has a powerful role in crafting a nation’s political discourse, but can only be involved in doing so if they act in concert with others. This neither denies the possibility of conflicting [...]
We have handicapped children by letting our concern for their safety overrule the enormous benefits that come with the way they naturally play... Last semester, some of our faculty recently participated in on-site CPR training on a Saturday morning. And again, this semester, on a Friday evening. Aside from the comfort you should derive knowing [...]
If culture is simply a matter of private enthusiasms and hobbies, of small details and specialties, then what of a common culture? What about the collective project and shared sense of purpose that built Western civilization? “The expert takes a little subject for his province, and remains a provincial for the rest of his [...]
The recent English controversy over the banning of fox hunting has ramifications that go to the heart of the future of the United States. If there are two Englands, rural and urban, there are two Americas also, the red heartland and the blue coastal fringes. The traditional heart of America is threatened by the radical fringe... [...]