The Enlightenment may well be the end of an old story rather than the beginning of a new one. The philosophy of insatiable appetites changed the Christian-Aristotelian moral order into the modern world, but now that the change is just about complete, what purpose does its catalyst serve? Power, Pleasure, and Profit: Insatiable Appetites From [...]
Americans turned to the concrete lessons of history and experience to guide them in securing their liberty. The French, on the other hand, deified Reason above not only experience, but also above religion and divine revelation. One of the many differences between the American and French Revolutions is that, unlike the French, Americans did not [...]
By the time of his death, Fr. Allan MacDonald was lauded throughout Scotland for his pioneering scholarship in the field of Celtic studies, for his tireless political campaigning to alleviate the plight of the poor, and for his poetry and translations. Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing, Onward! the sailors cry; Carry [...]
The Peloponnesian War is an example of how, if not properly managed, a small crisis can spiral out of control and eventually into a full-blown war. The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) was actually the second war fought between Athens and Sparta in the fifth century. Why did hostilities break out into the open again? The [...]
The Great Tradition patiently endures, ready to speak on its own behalf, ready to challenge narrow prejudices, ready to examine those with the courage to be interrogated by it, ready to teach those who are willing to be made unfit for the modern world. The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What It Means to Be [...]
What do we make of the four “Almost Sacraments”? Among other things, we might note how they bear upon a common interest that is, sadly, more and more neglected in today’s Church: young men. How many sacraments are there anyway? Seven? Two? Two-and-a-half? If you are Roman Catholic today, your Church has handed down this [...]
Anna Julia Cooper passionately defended classical education during the Reconstruction Era when the dilemma of how to educate former slaves arose. Cooper, a former slave herself, preached the virtue of classics and their necessary vitality to the soul. Anna Julia Cooper Why would a Black American female ex-slave revere the wisdom of dead [...]
One comes away from reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's book wishing that she might have expressed a doubt or two about the efficacy of this or that New Frontier/Great Society domestic initiative. But it is clear that the author has no doubts about the goodness of her country. An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of [...]
The HBO series “Chernobyl” serves to warn us about the danger of persistent lies in a society that refuses to acknowledge truth. It would be a grave error not to take stock of our own tendencies toward deceit, as if our lies are radically different from those that underpinned the Soviet Union. Over several long [...]
While everyday life feels rootless, cultural and artistic accomplishment stands as a steady anchor and source of pride and joy and discovery. Music, the most popular and beloved of the arts, connects us to something higher than us, perhaps a way of life and set of feelings that flourished before we were born. Music can [...]
Friedrich Nietzche’s “Ecce Homo” lays waste to centuries of an ethic of inhibition and restraint. Intellectually brutalized, bloodied, and tortured, the nineteenth-century philosopher presented himself in his final and last words to a world he wanted to overthrow. Behold the man. To be more accurate, behold the demon. In his mockingly titled autobiography and final [...]
Our civilization has danced on the edge of the volcano for so many years now, recklessly testing its footing in ever more vulgar and precarious ways, defying the moral interdictions of the past and gradually losing a sense of its own fragility and vulnerability, that it is hard to imagine that we will survive our [...]
The 18th century was a low point for the Church, particularly in France. But François-René de Chateaubriand would sow the seeds of the Catholic revival in France. It is hard to say which have been the lowest points in the history of the Church. The fourteenth century was pretty wretched. The papacy, exiled from Rome to [...]
In Whig narratives, the art of history becomes therapy, telling readers that they are good, everything works out in the end, God is on their side, and all moral and material progress leads to them. Tory history, however, tells a different story. For Tories, life is complex, chaotic, often contrary, sometimes ends badly, and demands [...]