In times of chaos, it’s profoundly necessary to remember those who have come before us and the innumerable sacrifices they made. Each of these great men, whatever his individual faults, sought to live according to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. They preserved, and they conserved. As a way of perceiving and a habit [...]
Written in the shadow of the Second World War, Ernst Jünger’s “The Forest Passage” reimagines the forest as a symbol of freedom in an age where the “Leviathan,” or all-encompassing totalitarian state, threatens to encroach on liberty and free space. Yet as long as the “forest rebel” has access to the domains of art, philosophy, [...]
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. This line will most likely sound familiar to every reader. It has been paraphrased countless times and is visible most notably in my mind as the quotation on the wall of one of the ghetto buildings in Auschwitz. Few know that the phrase was [...]
Banishing memory and the party of memory is nothing short of the banishment of the love and joy which make our lives and memories worth cherishing and conserving. The conservative celebrates the present order precisely because it is imbued with the traces of Eden which vivify our memories—and, therefore, our true selves—and unite us in [...]
Defacing public monuments, streets, churches, and administrative buildings constitutes an act of secular iconoclasm that should be taken seriously—not because the things destroyed possess the sanctity of real icons, but because the spirit in which these places and things are being destroyed conveys a hatred on the part of the rioters towards their own fellow [...]
Political philosophers have always understood that there was a close relationship between conceptions of time and politics. Modern, and now postmodern politics, are no different. Patrick Deneen has recently argued that modern ideologies are defined first and foremost by their relationship to time. Introduction “The time is out of joint. O cursèd spite, / That [...]
We must respect the difficulty and danger of the jobs of those who protect us and stop willfully blinding ourselves to the unpleasant realities around us. Let us defend, support, and celebrate our police and our military; without them, our world would be a far more perilous place. This semester, I am happily exercising one [...]
For some time I had puzzled over a discrepancy or inconsistency between two of Richard Weaver’s essays which treat of Lincoln to one degree or another. In his “Abraham Lincoln and the Argument from Definition” (1953), Weaver praises Lincoln as a “conservative” by virtue of his employment of the argument from definition on such issues [...]
What makes time so wonderful is that it humbles us as well as inspires us. And if we simply recognized each person on social media as a complete human being born into a specific place and a specific time, we might be able to get past so much of what we erroneously label as discourse. [...]
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. The [...]
In his excellent, short book, Conservatism: Dream and Reality, Robert Nisbet had no problem in identifying conservatism as an ideology. Whereas his friend, Russell Kirk, had repeatedly resisted defining the faith as anything other than a “way of being” quite contrary to all ideologies (in essence, an anti-ideology). Nisbet proclaimed it one of three ideologies [...]
Why do so many Americans doubt the coronavirus? I think there are both admirable and repugnant traits within the American character that help to explain the phenomenon. I don’t believe I am wrong in my observation that many of my fellow conservatives come across as “coronavirus doubters.” Someone has coined a clumsy phrase, “Coronavirus Truthers,” [...]
Let me begin this essay by simply throwing down the gauntlet. American imperialists—of whatever political persuasion or ideology—are not only traitors to the American cause and in violation of the deepest meanings and profundities of the American ideal, they are also embracing demonic goals of remaking the world in their own image, thus trampling on [...]
A journal is claiming that the Russian government was using the Covid-19 outbreak to strengthen anti-EU feelings, make propaganda gains, and gather intelligence at the heart of NATO. Although this report has gained traction, what is this statement really saying and who is saying it? According to a recent news report, Russia is using the [...]