Suppose an anthropologist were asked, apart from the sound and fury of current politics, what were the signs of a dying culture, or a culture committing suicide? What might he respond, as following from human nature and from the terms of the question itself? What might he notice in our own? Such a culture would [...]
A call to the Trappists to order a child’s casket is one no parent wants to make, but the monks provide comfort and support for the grieving families by always sending the casket as a gift. The monks themselves have been surprised by how much fruit has been borne by their prayer and work. Trappists, [...]
I have no memory of my father, and I don’t have the same precious treasures as my two older brothers do to pull out in times of great sorrow or great joy. I’m sure my lack of having a father has affected me in ways I’ll never understand. Such is God’s providence in this Valley [...]
Dealing with the topic of death, Dietrich von Hildebrand’s consoling book “Jaws of Death: Gate of Heaven” shines both in its “dark” and “light” halves, illuminating the eternal duality of human life and helping to reconcile its painful contradictions. Life is not a journey of diminishing returns, ending in darkness and the grave, but a [...]
Zombie legends remain a relevant medium that continues to capture the imaginations of modern people. As with any myth or legend, we gain wisdom about ourselves when we endeavor to unearth the symbolic meanings that lie buried beneath the surface. At times, what we find is as frightening as it is illuminating. With the Halloween [...]
The present bombing of Armenia and Artsakh is meant to fulfill the Young Turk dream of building an Empire. That dream is alive and well in Turkey’s government today. By honoring and listening to historian Bernard Lewis, we have become accomplices of that dream, that nightmare. It is time to wake up and hold fast [...]
One hundred and forty-two years after the Congress of Berlin, the same nightmarish scenario is playing out again: Turkish forces are killing Armenians. And like the Europeans of times past, we just don’t seem to get it. How many Armenians have to die before we understand that life and culture are precious and must be [...]
Commissioned by Adolf Hitler, “Triumph of the Will” is a terrifying film. It is as if, for a moment, something infernal took control of the camera and caused the audience to be entranced, as it projected a lie into Germany’s consciousness, and then beyond to an unwilling world. As a consequence, 85 million people were [...]
The greatest poets, including Homer, Virgil, and Dante, ask what happens to the human soul after death. Do the dead become mere shadows of their former selves or do they become more real? The greatest poets have always asked the most important questions. One of the most important questions concerns the destiny of the human [...]
Uberto Pasolini’s “Still Life” is a haunting, original, and moving tribute to human worth and self-sacrificial love at the street level. It is a beautiful, quiet film that packs an emotional and philosophical punch far beyond its weight. Always on the lookout for a film that is better than the formulaic, ideologically-driven entertainment that is [...]
In the Western world today many people, especially among the elites, are quite willing to forfeit community life, while others are actively working to destroy it. We are witnessing—perhaps even unthinkingly participating in—the suicide of our culture. When I read the news headline, it suddenly all seemed clear. The story reported that new positive COVID [...]
I The Dog-Star’s and the Lion’s days Oppress with more than searing rays: Fear grips the land, her demons gnaw, Loosed in a frenzied craze Now made the only law. […]
If lockdowns worked, we would expect Sweden, which did not impose one, to top the mortality table, and for the pandemic curve to have risen exponentially, as predicted by the notorious Imperial College model. This predicted that without a lockdown Sweden would have 44,000 dead by now. But Sweden’s actual figure is not nearly that [...]
It may one day be said that the coronavirus delivered the deathblow to the New World Order, to a half-century of globalization, and to the era of interdependence of the world’s great nations. Which rings truer today? We are all part of mankind, all citizens of the world. Or that it’s time to put America [...]