Demands for statesmanship tend to hold up a model of greatness in political leadership that is profoundly dangerous. The desire to be “great” by upholding the interests of the nation as a political whole promotes a massive increase in the extent and centralization of political power. I recently attended a conference on statesmanship. Truth be [...]
A dark and malevolent aspect of the Puritans, which explains Shakespeare’s dark and malevolent portrayal of Malvolio, is the manner in which they were directly responsible for the persecution of England’s Catholics, including members of Shakespeare’s own family… If Shylock in The Merchant of Venice is a thinly-veiled Puritan (see my previous essay), so is [...]
Usury was a hot topic in William Shakespeare’s day, and one which divided people on religious lines. It is interesting, therefore, that Shakespeare takes the Catholic side in the argument, as opposed to the Puritan position, a fact that surely heightens the possibility that Shylock is really a Puritan wearing a Jewish mask… In my last [...]
Given the events of the past several years and the current geopolitical rivalries within Iraq, it is easy to imagine Christians, Yazidis, and others being caught once again in the crosshairs of malevolent powers… Several months after the defeat of ISIS in northern Iraq, the ethnic and religious minorities who were driven from their homes [...]
We should respond to the question of whether the West is worth defending by first asking the more important question of which West it is that we are being asked to defend… There are many people who will cite the West as something which is under threat and something for which we should be prepared [...]
Much of suffering is an impenetrable mystery. But to a limited degree, we are able to understand suffering if we can come to understand what love is. Pope John Paul II, in Salvifici Doloris, writes, “Sacred Scripture is a great book about suffering.”[1] He then quotes the Old Testament to illustrate the spectrum of human suffering: the [...]
It is not by the love of money or the love of earthly power that men and women are moved to publish a serious journal of ideas. Rather, they are animated by their love of right reason… Back in 1955, when I was endeavoring to found the conservative quarterly that indeed did take on flesh [...]
Religion “works,” in Edmund Burke’s view, when it stands apart from the whims of those who practice it. Only then can it enable self-discipline, give meaning, and provide a real sense of the sacred and the sublime in life… Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords our readers the opportunity to join William F. [...]
Vatican diplomats are on the verge of a new relationship with China, and, moreover, about to make a deal with the communist state. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Rome is capitulating to an avowed atheistic enemy of religion… Taking advice from his boss, who encouraged everyone to “go out and make a [...]
Sphinx-like Lebanon—best known for its businessmen, bankers, and civil wars—is the ultimate example in explaining the inexplicable in the Mideast. If the dog now wants something, he wags his tail; impatient of Master’s stupidity in not understanding the perfectly distinct and expressive speech, he adds vocal expression—he barks—and finally an expression of attitude—he mimes or [...]
No good Muslim, unless he is trying to deceive us, has any doubt that Allah is exactly as he is described in the Koran... Most people know that the Quran (Qur’an, Koran) is the holy book of the Muslim religion, hence of about a fifth of the world’s population. But knowing this much, we still must [...]
The New Atlantis is at once a fable, a work of political philosophy, and a religious text. The god that it preaches on behalf of is the humanistic god of the Enlightenment— with reason, knowledge, science, and progress as its sacred values… The spirit of the Enlightenment is vividly captured in Francis Bacon’s unfinished fable, [...]
Robert Nisbet, in direct contrast to Russell Kirk, argued that conservatism was purely a modern ideology. For Nisbet, the entire history of conservatism began as a reaction to the French Revolution… When it came to the history of conservatism, the grand sociologist and man of letters, Robert Nisbet, disagreed with the mighty founder of modern [...]
A living system getting too close to the edge of chaos risks incoherence, but moving too far away risks rigidity, either case leading to extinction. Complex systems flourish at the edge of chaos. For the imaginative conservative, real thought, reflection, and learning often take place at the edge of chaos… Studying history teaches us not [...]