In virtually every major field of thought today, Westerners are advocating conflicting paradigms concerning change. In some areas, there is a dogmatic insistence on infinite fluidity. In other areas, there is an equally dogmatic insistence on inflexible fixity. This indicates that we moderns have not thought much about change at all. All of Western philosophy—all [...]
Slogans gain resonance more quickly and widely than ever before, so that we are governed by bumper-sticker thinking, and entertainment becomes the supra-ideology of all discourse. In favor of a new inauthentic ‘reality’, we bid farewell to a culture, including its history, and devolve into a state of double vision that extends to cultural, social, [...]
When the pandemic separated us from our sacred spaces like the church or other communal places, Zoom promised connection. However, Zoom—as a medium of education and relationship—prevents us from truly connecting because of technology’s nature to divide, distract, and isolate. But when it came to the subject of letters, Theuth said, ‘But this study, King [...]
So why are third-millennium Americans leaving religion? The reason isn't clear, but I would argue that the proper response is counter-intuitive: become more explicitly “religious,” not less. Make Christianity a clear alternative to the culture, not just another option among many. When I logged into Twitter on Easter Monday morning, I was pleasantly surprised. As [...]
The culture of a real community like that of college isn’t simply a matter of texts and discussions of ideas, but of live emotion and thought, real presence to each other, a continuous awareness and exchange that locates each person in the larger community. Yesterday afternoon, during one of our regular meetings with the freshman [...]
In the 1984 film “The Karate Kid,” Mr. Miyagi’s teaching method may seem scandalous to Western eyes: Either Daniel does things his way, or not at all. The wise mentor refuses to reveal to Daniel the reason for his menial exercises. But it is precisely the virtue of submission and obedience that is essential for [...]
Music held a notable place within Thomas Jefferson's cultured and humanistic life—a point reinforced by his insistence on having music instruction at his newly founded University of Virginia. This shows the importance Jefferson placed on music in the life of the mind, just as his involvement with music throughout his life enhances his image as [...]
Set in the period after the completion of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the film, “Sin,” paints a rounded characterization of Michelangelo rather than the hoary cliché of the solitary misanthropic genius holed up in his studio. This episode of the artist’s career has never been so dramatically or so convincingly told. Il Peccato (Sin), the [...]
What is most needed at this hour is a retrieval of the sources which shaped the Western imagination. Returning to our Christian, Greek, and Roman roots, and examining the texts and ideas which provided the foundation for the remarkable civilisation that spread across the European continent could bear real fruit in strengthening our ailing cultures. [...]
Too often we Christians have given in to the temptation to sanitize the crucifixion and sentimentalize the resurrection. But the resurrection was not, at first, a cause for rejoicing, but the source of fear—soul-shaking, knee-knocking, heart-pounding, earth-quaking fear. One of the good things about Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is the gore. He [...]
A key lesson of Sophocles’ “Antigone” is that fanaticism results when public actors fail to practice the one virtue capable of moderating the excesses of human nature: political prudence. In an insightful essay (“Idolatry in Lockdown,” Law and Liberty, January 28, 2021), Spencer Klavan reflects on the contemporary significance of the conflict at the heart [...]
The internet is like a city; websites are like buildings. In the same way that architecture works in and through the technological design of the building and produces an aesthetic effect, so does web design. Therefore, the websites we visit are forming our souls, not merely by their content, but also through their design. The [...]
The American College of the Building Arts (ACBA) is unlike any college that I know. Indeed it is the only school in the entire country offering a four-year degree in traditional craftsmanship. “Along with pens, paper, books, and computers, students here learn with trowels, chisels, hammers, and anvils,” writes Logan Ward in Garden & Gun. [...]
Politics, we are always to remind ourselves, is not God; to pretend otherwise is an affront to God. Nevertheless, politics may prove helpful in making it easier for us to get to God. Especially these days when it becomes more urgent than ever to remind the state of those things it may not do to [...]