This summer and fall, we’ve talked a lot about the decline of civility in our politics—because of growing political polarization, bickering on social media, and rudeness in public spaces. “Every day rudeness, disrespect and hostility sideline collaboration and compromise,” the National Institute for Civil Discourse writes on their website. “Sound bites replace sound journalism. Extremes [...]
What is friendship? Why is it important and why is it worth cultivating? These axiomatic questions form a significant part of the thought and writing of C. S. Lewis. In a letter to his lifelong friend, Arthur Greeves, Lewis touched upon the heart and meaning of friendship: The First [Universal Friend] is the alter ego, [...]
Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Dean Abbott as he considers the importance of the small, local bookstore to civilization. —W. Winston Elliott III, Publisher Our family lives in the kind of town most people only see in fiction: an archetypal, small, Midwestern town of picket fences and blocks [...]
Love for the suburbs is in relatively short supply. The great American migration out of center cities coincided with a number of social trends, not least the dramatic disengagement from civil society spotlighted by Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone. Automobiles replaced streetcars, backyards replaced city parks, television replaced the front patio, and the shared amenities [...]
The last Saturday morning in August, my wife noticed that some of our neighbors had a moving truck outside their home. After watching with the kids for a minute or two, she acknowledged that she had never seen the people before. I recognized the man, though I had never spoken to him—he seemed to purposefully [...]
Firefighters’ role in the perpetuation of the common good in American communities is significant, even in surprising and unexpected ways. At a time when America is suffering a decline in community service and volunteerism, we should be grateful for firefighters serving our communities in other ways. As wildfires rage across California, the state has once [...]
The liberal rage against the border wall has much to do with the nature of boundaries. Walls, borders, and fences are manifestations of restraint. Fallen humanity naturally resists the restraints of order that keep the unbridled passions under control. Walls are needed to keep the peace… “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” wrote [...]
The three vows of the Benedictine monk are obedience, stability, and conversion of life. In our own ways, we can follow this example, making it real by paying attention to prayer, cracking the books in solid study, and rolling up our sleeves in the honest, hard work of rebuilding what has fallen into despair and [...]
Aristotle’s reasoning about virtue, with its emphasis on man’s relationship to his own soul and man’s ability to perfect his own virtue, opened a path to relativism and radical individualism. All philosophical inquiry is united by two foundational elements. First the philosopher acknowledges that man’s existence is defined by his relationships. While philosophers may differ [...]
While graduation should be a time of celebration, it should also be a time when young people are encouraged to ponder, discern, and “graduate” to that higher calling that corresponds to the desires of their restless hearts. It is that time of the year again when students graduate from their high schools and colleges. The [...]
In an age of cynicism and selfishness, Mike Rowe's "Returning the Favor" is an unabashedly feel-good show, telling the story of the many unsung, little, local platoons that comprise the heart of our communities and that quietly give the lie to the idea that only the omnipotent State can take care of us. Edmund Burke [...]
Do we descend steadily, and now somewhat speedily, toward a colossal architecture of unparalleled dreariness, and a colossal state of unparalleled uniformity? Will all of us labor under a profound depression of spirits because of the boring and servile architecture about us? And will the society now taking form in America resign itself to a [...]
I wonder whether the Benedict Option will be allowed by God. The problem for a lay monastic movement is that we laity are called to be salt and light in a fundamentally different way from monks and nuns. Salt does not do any good for the food when it is clumped together in a mass; [...]
The trouble with our civilization, Albert Jay Nock declared, is that it makes exceedingly limited demands on the human spirit and the qualities that are distinctly and properly humane. We have been trying to live by mechanics alone, the mechanics of pedagogy, politics, industry, commerce. Instead of experiencing a change of heart, we bend our [...]