The modern secularist, T.S. Eliot argued, finds meaning either in the brute forces of the physical world or the arbitrary freeplay of the mind or the passing consensus of the human tribe. Looking for meaning in these places has not only led individuals to a sense of nihilism but has led whole nations to slaughter [...]
A liberal education is free in the sense that it is free of practical goals. We study our language and our literature or biology and chemistry and psychology just because it is a human instinct to do so, and because it is enjoyable to do so. Everything is Political Just as I began my college [...]
When man pursues beauty, he takes it into himself and becomes beautiful through it; a perpetual beauty-seeker, such as Don Quixote, is, therefore, a beautiful man. He conceived the strangest notion that ever took shape in a madman’s head, considering it desirable and necessary, both for the increase of his honor and the common good, [...]
There have been theories about literature nearly as long as there has been literature, beginning with Plato and Aristotle. But the ancient theorists all assumed that they were thinking about something that had its own functions and ends, which they might help to explain. When the new professors think of theory it is exclusively more [...]
C.S. Lewis’ lesson to his friends and fans—and to us—is that the cultivation of the imagination might require more than reading and writing, but it requires no less. Readers likely know C.S. Lewis by the works of his imagination, first encountering him in the snowdrifts of the Narnian woods or on an omnibus bound for [...]
The American constitutional tradition stretches back beyond our shores to England. It is a tradition shaped on this continent by experience and the character of the people. In this vision, local communities play the primary role in government, protecting the fundamental institutions in which good character is formed. We hold these truths to be self-evident, [...]
John Senior’s great contribution was to forge a middle way between indoctrination and the chaos of complete relativism. Instead of indoctrinating students, the classical knowledge of a Christian culture provided the tools and the framework for true education. John Senior and the Restoration of Realism by Francis Bethel It was one of those serendipitous meetings that [...]
To the philosopher, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. — Emerson What is wisdom? I feel like a droplet of spray which proudly poised for a moment on the crest of a wave, undertakes to analyze the sea. Ideally, wisdom is total [...]
It is from careful textual analysis of “The Federalist” that the basic symbols of the American political tradition, and indeed the conservative tradition, may be found. III In his analysis of the Socrates of the Apology, Willmoore Kendall was hinting strongly at the probability that the contemporary John Stuart Mill-Karl Popper school in the United [...]
Great poetry can come from deep engagement with the problems of politics, but it is especially moving to see how exile—often the consequence of that engagement—subtly becomes the symbol of the condition of fallen man. Students at Wyoming Catholic College memorize many poems in the four years of the humanities curriculum, but few of the [...]
We may find in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s writings essential guides for the seas we have to navigate in the “post-modern” era. Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Malcolm Guite (Hodder & Stoughton, 2017) The following passage is a brief extract from my book Mariner: A Voyage with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This book was written [...]
The profound Germano-Italian philosopher and theologian Romano Guardini (1885-1968) remains one of the most unsung heroes of twentieth-century conservatism. His reputation revived a bit during the all-too brief pontificate of Benedict XVI as so much of Ratzinger’s thought came from Guardini, directly and indirectly. But, he and his work should stand much higher than they [...]
A preliminary function of a liberal education must be to serve as a purgative, a cleansing, of those who wish to be free. By its means we can cleanse ourselves of our undigested and unconscious prejudices. When it first came home to me that I would not be a tutor at the Graduate Institute in [...]
Wilhelm Roepke was the principal champion of a humane economy: that is, an economic system suited to human nature and to a humane scale in society, as opposed to systems bent upon mass production regardless of counterproductive personal and social consequences. Today I offer you some observations concerning Wilhelm Roepke, a principal social thinker of [...]