Having read several of Eva Brann’s books, I can say without exaggeration that she is among the most impressive contemporary scholarly readings. Among the qualities that make her so astute is that she is extraordinary at two things: she is a practiced close reader, and she has a range of knowledge that is generally limited [...]
Like many other lovers of the Great Books and the Great Tradition, I yield to the truth that Homer’s epics are the magnificent profane fountain that gave birth to our imagination. Having tasted deeply from the sacred fountains that brought forth living waters, I am mostly in agreement with Glenn Arbery’s assertion that “Of all [...]
Even a frontier newspaper got right what our current commodifiers of “conservatism” don’t understand. In fact, not only do they not understand, they don’t even know they don’t understand. I’m not sure they know much of anything. Well, they know about getting people riled up and getting better ratings. I, of course, exclude the ever-excellent [...]
Among the many readings that Fr. James V. Schall recommends, he places special emphasis on the value of reading Cicero’s “On Old Age.” Schall suggests that this should be read “preferably before old age.” Starting this year, I am having my Great Books Honors students read this work and discuss it. We have already had [...]
It is a wondrous turn of events how a conversation, a new book on Heraclitus (The Logos of Heraclitus) by the magnificent Great Books scholar, Eva Brann, finding Fragments: The Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus, and my particular sitz im laben moved me to reread and rethink an important pre-Socratic philosopher. To begin, I find the [...]
Socrates Despite decades of “critical thinking,” the anecdotal and statistical evidence is that Americans in general, and Christians in particular, have an aversion for thinking. In a recent article, the evidence is that many, if not most students, simply do not want to think. In truth, the students are merely mirroring the broader [...]
The classical education of the American Founders was “Inspired by Liberty and Virtue.” Winston Elliott suggested the title for this essay and it is a good one. The curriculum that educated so many of the Founding generation was not primarily training for a profession. It aimed at preparing future citizens for a life of ordered [...]
With stealth and no small amount of cowardice, the Greeks creep out of their strange gift, a large wooden horse, under the cover of night and safely within the locked city walls. Rather than face Aeneas and the Trojans as men in battle, the Greeks unlock the gates, letting their murderous comrades in, and proceed [...]
A response to “A Conservatism of Hope? Still?” “The greatest is love,” we are told. “The most difficult is hope,” we could also say. The view from the public policy world is increasingly grim, I confess. Mark Steyn, commenting on the sad ensemble constituting the GOP presidential field, captured the problem recently: “It’s very depressing [...]
This past year my two oldest boys (high school age) read Plutarch’s biographical essays on Solon, Pericles, Alexander and Caesar. One of my sons loved it, the other was much more grumpy about the exercise, but I think some of it rubbed off. There was even an unexpected trickle-down effect. One day my 10-year-old daughter accused [...]
A favorite passage from Virgil’s AENEID, Book 8: The Shield of Aeneas But the goddess Venus Lustrous among the cloudbanks, bearing her gifts, Approached and when she spotted her son alone, Off in a glade’s recess by the frigid stream, She hailed him, suddenly there before him: ‘Look, Just forged to perfection by all my husband’s [...]
Below are quotes from Russell Kirk’s first published academic article, “Tragedy and the Moderns.” The article appeared in January 1940, when Kirk was just beginning his second semester of his senior year in college. He wrote it, however, during either his freshman or sophomore year at Michigan State, under and with the encouragement of his [...]
We ought not to listen to those who exhort us, because we are human, to think of human things.… We ought rather to take on immortality as much as possible, and do all that we can to live in accordance with the highest element within us; for even if its bulk is small, in its [...]
As that beautiful and intellectual force of nature, Annette Kirk, has mentioned in conversation many times, Russell was an Augustinian, and she was a Thomist. She was also more Aristotelian and he more Platonic. In one of his most under-appreciated works (now, perhaps, more necessary to republish than ever), Decadence and Renewal in the Higher [...]