What are we to make of the call to ban Shakespeare and other dead white men because they are dead? It is time that those who have declared a neo-racist war on humanity be named and shamed. It is time to unite in defence of the humanities in the knowledge that they show us our [...]
We are witnessing storm troopers in cyber-space “pulling the plug” on those whose voices they refuse to tolerate. Two personal experiences of such censorship—both of which relate to The Imaginative Conservative itself—will suffice to illustrate the trend… The interference of Google and Facebook in the recent Irish referendum on abortion raises serious concerns about the [...]
The largely-forgotten rules of etiquette were part of an overall project of turning testosterone-driven male lust into meaningfully-directed male courtship. Parents have to remember that teaching their children how to dance, how to date, and how to court and be courted is their job. I had to apologize for my species again today. Not the usual [...]
The birth control for which Margaret Sanger so passionately fought has led not to freedom, but to slavery of the worst kind, for both men and women. Of this, we as a nation should be very afraid. Margaret Sanger, the great champion of sexual liberalism, is about as modern as they come in many ways, [...]
Allan Bloom’s diagnosis in The Closing of the American Mind can explain far more about the sorry state of American higher education and the Western condition than popular stories that blame the Enlightenment, or democracy, or medieval nominalism. And it is therefore a valuable starting point… Last year marked the thirtieth anniversary of Allan Bloom’s [...]
The abuse of opioids, like other addictions, stems from a profound spiritual problem deep inside the souls of countless Americans. But when people turn to the sublimity of heavenly things, they acquire the ability to overcome their frenetic appetites and look for spiritual solutions… An opioid crisis is devastating America. Every day, more than ninety [...]
The seemingly insignificant suppression of ladies and gentlemen on New York’s trains represents a giant step backward. It affirms that we need no longer behave like ladies and gentlemen, but rather like whatever we want to be, or happen to be, at the moment... Passengers, customers, or whatever you want to call them are welcome [...]
Western civilization has been gutted from within. At the core of this moral bankruptcy is a watered-down Christianity that lacks the conviction to defend itself… Today mankind enjoys unprecedented technology, but lacks the wisdom to regard technology as a tool in the service of life, and not an end in itself. The difference between the [...]
The Benedict Option is more about a change of heart and mind than growing a beard, getting some chickens, and building a utopian religious community in the woods. The Benedict Option means coming to the realization that the time for dialogue and debate is over and the time for quiet action has begun. Much has [...]
We need to remember, as G.K. Chesterton never forgot, that evil is its own worst enemy. If Chesterton were alive today he’d be exposing the lies of relativism, secularism, and the culture of death, and showing our generation, as he showed his, that Christian orthodoxy is the only solution to the world’s dissolution… Editor’s Note: [...]
Our moral duty to protect innocent life is the bedrock of civilization and the founding principle of this Great American Experiment. The root of the despotism of this age is clearly the corruption and abuse of language. The mind-molders in the ivory towers falsely insist that language is man-made and so invented for personal and subjective [...]
With the grave worry of many Christians about living in a culture that seems to be antagonistic to Christianity itself, we ought to consider the radical alternative of intentional communities. In these days of the rise of the “nones,” said to be the fastest growing “religious” body in the country, and with the grave worry [...]
Recent books by Anthony Esolen, R.R. Reno and Bishop Charles Chaput comprise a compendium of trenchant social and cultural criticism. But do any of these authors provide a workable solution to the de-Christianization of America?… In Mere Christianity (1952), the published version of his radio talks delivered in the early 1940’s, C. S. Lewis asserted that [...]
Like a pair of Noahs, Rod Dreher and Anthony Esolen have produced two powerful books for Christians who, facing the flood of the breakdown of society, are considering the Benedict Option… Worried about the breakneck pace of change, overwhelming social upheaval, the breakdown of the family, the sexual revolution, the disintegration of Christianity, and the [...]