To my mind, there never was a more serious teacher than Socrates. So let us imitate him to the best of our ability, and strive continually to improve our ability. I have written about Socrates as a model for imitating heroes, because he shows us how to use the lives of extraordinary people to help [...]
The West is dying because it has turned its back on the Permanent Things. But what will be left when the secularist “West” is dead? I expected my recent essay “Race Against Reason” to provoke an element of controversy and was not surprised when it elicited the following comment: Yes, this is all well and [...]
The truth is not simply that all that is good, true and beautiful comes from heaven but that all goodness, truth and beauty points to heaven. We see heaven in the light of the heavenly overspill in which we find ourselves. They came to the top of a little ridge with fine views over the [...]
We should learn from the political credo of the Venetians, who never forgot the history that had made them a special nation. To be a patriot is to embody our connection to the national bond through devotion to a "practice." It is good to be enthralled by dogmas of the quiet past, remembering who and [...]
Please join Peter Kalkavage as he discusses the metaphysics of music: music's role in the liberal arts, the paradox in the union of rational and irrational, order and feeling in its composition, and music's connection and reflection of the deeper order of the natural world, of being. Introduction: In this podcast, we hear from Peter [...]
Music assures us that we are not alone: that there is something out there in the world that knows our hearts and may even teach us to know them better. Thanks to music, we experience what it means to be connected to the whole of all things. “Music, too, is nature.” —Victor Zuckerkandl, Sound and [...]
What kind of education is necessary to preserve our liberal democracy? How should we educate our citizens to be fit for the freedom they ought to enjoy in our democratic republic? I confess to having approached Mr. Charles Murray’s book with a little ambivalence. I imagined that I might be one of those educational romantics he [...]
Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde should prompt us to search for an antidote to the lovers’ death wish—to pursue a love that preserves rather than destroys, celebrates rather than abolishes individuality, and seeks life rather than death. “They who were two and divided now became one and united.” —Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan and Isolde I come [...]
One of the most pressing tasks for contemporary Christians is the recovery and cultivation of the inextricable link between the Christian faith and the intellectual life. In order to engage in such reflection, we should explore the relationship of Christianity and the liberal arts, and in particular seek to draw from Augustine as we reflect [...]
There is nothing in the natural world, or in the inner and outer life of man, that does not find its counterpart in the all-embracing realm of tones. Music as symbol is the whole of all things. “They who were two and divided now became one and united.” —Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan and Isolde I [...]
Music, as a living presence that comes to us, offers itself to us, assures us that we are not alone: that there is something out there in the world that knows our hearts and may even teach us to know them better. Music, too, is nature. —Victor Zuckerkandl, Sound and Symbol. This essay explores the [...]
Dante’s globalism, his vision of the whole, is not confined to the earth but extends to the entire universe. This includes the invisible, spiritual world as well as the visible, corporeal one. It embraces the human and the divine, the natural and the supernatural… it celebrates the victory of hope over despair. “The things of [...]
"It is Christianity which is at once the original bond of European unity," Christopher Dawson argued, "and the source of the spiritual ideals and the attitude to life which inspired our civilization. The enemies of Europe recognize this fact more clearly than we do ourselves." The Movement of World Revolution, by Christopher Dawson (176 pages, [...]
The “Iliad” has a kind of immediacy you will find nowhere else. It has irresistible momentum. It grabs you in the middle, somewhere in the vicinity of the chest or the heart, and it demands the attention of your sensibility. One of the many things I love about this college is that everyone must begin [...]