During his final illness, Blaise Pascal often refused the care of his physician, saying: “Sickness is the natural state of Christians.” He believed that human beings had been created to suffer. Misery was the condition of life in this world. My uncle made book for a living. That is, he took money from those who [...]
It would be possible to read Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis" as a pro-life narrative that invites us to see the dignity of the human person beneath the ugly surface. But such a reading would violate the true spirit of the work which, as the author confesses, is animated by narcissistic self-pity and is an outpouring of [...]
At its best, Aaron Copland’s Americana style is one of the great, ingenious, and enduring achievements in music. Its greatness is not diminished by its widespread imitation by lesser talents in movies, television shows, and commercials, where it has served as a ready way to evoke the Far West, small-town life, or other phases of [...]
It may be the greatest challenge facing those who love classical music in our modern age is the one facing those who do not also love Beauty. Those who reject the idea of Beauty, who deny its value, or who relegate it to meaninglessness—as in fact so many of today’s most vocal proponents of classical music [...]
There are some valuable lessons to be learned from the Romantic reaction against the Enlightenment and the various neo-medievalist movements which were its fruits. The most important is that society is not progressing inexorably in one “progressive” rationalist direction. The eighteenth century was a time of religious skepticism which seemed to foreshadow the eclipse of [...]
The essence of Rome, by being conscious of one’s cultural debts, is the refusal to make a definitive synthesis or mediation. Only in Rome are there Athens and Jerusalem. Only because of Rome are there “two cities because one remains silently present.” Remi Brague’s observation about the historical essence of Rome shows that “Romanity” is [...]
Seeing himself and his allies on the losing side of the war against the modern spirit, Irving Babbitt made a fierce call to arms, advocating the need for a “remnant” to preserve all that is good, true, and beautiful. Irving Babbitt In his own day and age, Irving Babbitt’s (1865-1933) many opponents—from Ernest [...]
That which makes education liberal is not the acquisition of virtue, for that would subordinate such education to some extrinsic good, and the essential characteristic of an education that makes it liberal is precisely its intrinsic good, the fact that its value does not depend on some good outside itself. I wish to offer some [...]
Impression: Sunrise What are we to make of impressionism? According to Chesterton it was “another name for that final scepticism which can find no floor to the universe”. These are damning words, which will not be accepted very readily by those who admire impressionist art. One does not look at a painting by [...]
The new religion of optimism has its orthodoxy and its watchdogs. What is perceived as pessimism, negativity, or intolerance is not only eschewed, it is prohibited; and should anyone dare to voice an opinion that seems in any way not to be tender-hearted, tolerant, and brightly optimistic, he will be hounded, howled down, and cancelled. [...]
Now I, too, would like the university to be a safe space, but a safe space for rational argument about the pressing issues of our time. If a university stands for anything, surely it stands for that idea of truth, as a guiding light in our darkness and the source of real knowledge. Free speech [...]
Katherine Lee Bates’ “America the Beautiful” conveys the incalculable beauty of virtue that America can exhibit by exercising self-control and taking on the high responsibilities of self-rule. Our prayer is that the anomalies of this year do not overcome us, and that our nation will recall itself and find again the greatness of soul that [...]
To justify the Classics and Humanities, some have tried to argue that they remain a practical option for students, couching their praise in terms readily amenable to the outcome-focused mentalities of today’s high-achieving students. But does reducing the Classics and Humanities to a series of “practical” stepping-stones do the subjects any justice? Colleges and universities [...]
The “beautiful violence” of Old Masters painting—a magnificence rooted in the study of Light and Dark as technique, as style, but most of all as a symbolic representation of the very essence of life on earth—remains timeless for its sublime understanding of that which for each human soul cannot be explained. “To define art is [...]