America needs moral restoration. Without it, society just goes from bad to worse, chasing doomed utopian ideas like defunding the police, and redirecting funds to leftist groups that hate and subvert the traditional family. Trying to solve the problem of policing without moral regeneration and the rebuilding of our families, communities, and Church is [...]
The major pro of the shift to online classes during the coronavirus pandemic was our being together, even though we were isolated at our homes away from campus. But the proposal being entertained by some in higher ed to begin the fall semester online has one very glaring con: Starting classes online cold from [...]
Nostalgia for the smaller face-to-face societies of the past is common to both progressives and conservatives. There was a time, whether it was 100 years ago or 10,000, when relationships between people were more meaningful, families lived more in harmony with nature, and communities worked together to care for the young and the needy. [...]
I encourage those who smoke to light a cigar in solitude or with a band of brothers. Recite a poem out loud or in the confines of your soul. Rejoice, reflect, and ponder over the mystery of our faith in Jesus Christ. What is a cigar to a man if not a sacred companion? [...]
Reading poems about home and community is well and good, but this does not itself build community. Drinking a few glasses of wine and reciting a poem in good company, however, can. Community is simply home more broadly understood. And, although home is not always a location, its psychological contours can be, and indeed [...]
Wine is the gift that lifts our gaze from a world of toil to a horizon of leisure and community. It is the gift that reminds us of our primordial communion with one another and with the divine, and the gift that commemorates the radical generosity of our condition. A view of Casa [...]
If you’re feeling threatened by disease, I want you to know that many people the world over have felt that way for many centuries and they nonetheless held fast, carried on as best they were able, and rejoiced whenever they could. So, here’s what I think of the current COVID-19 situation: Be mentally, emotionally, [...]
The most important question a person can ask is the philosophical question, “Who am I?”, because without knowing who we truly are, we will not be sure that what we seek is good for us and what we try to avoid is bad. […]
It is hard to imagine how this country will recover from the hostility and political polarization that now define it without rediscovering a “pre-political loyalty," as Sir Roger Scruton called it, "towards something higher, something that is shared between all the citizens, regardless of their political beliefs and inclinations: the nation." With Roger Scruton’s passing [...]
At least since the time of the ancient philosopher Plato, private property rights have posed challenges to those aspiring to craft a just political society. During the nascent years of American civilization, the Pilgrim settlers of the New Plymouth Plantation followed a partly Platonic model of a commonwealth. The survival of their settlement, they [...]
A nation-state as old, and as large in territory, as the United States will experience in its old-age problems we associate with the elderly: loss of memory, preference for the past, reliance on creaky institutions that no longer work, limited income, and questions about the future. Our Constitution has logged 230 years since it was [...]
Twenty-four centuries after his death, the words of Socrates can still unsettle an attentive listener. However, before we can understand his most famous dictum, we must clear away who we are not to grasp who we are—something only done when we are grounded in the fundamental relationships that are universal to humankind. Probably, the [...]
Well, no cannonballs did fly, no rifles cut us down No bombs fell from the sky, no blood soaked the ground No powder flash blinded the eye, no deathly thunder sounded But just as sure as the hand of God, they brought death to my hometown They destroyed our families, factories, and they took our [...]
How can we rebuild culture and community in a world where we seem to be glued together in pragmatic tribes, looking across the divide at deadly enemies? One answer is to rediscover the parts of life that make up the whole of a healthy community, and what better way to embark on our study of [...]