We live in a world completely mastered and permeated by economic ideals, yet expecting better government within societies brought up on humanitarian thinking strikes us as yet another fantasy. Much has changed since the solutions posited by humanist thinkers of the last century, so what can we do in this world? What can we bet [...]
Our age is undergoing what many have described as a “Great Realignment.” This is nowhere more true than among conservatives. The fusion that brought together under Ronald Reagan social conservatives, free marketers, and national defense hawks has largely un-fused of late. Many conservatives have begun to talk about a “dead consensus.”[1] Given the nature of [...]
Mary Shelley was perhaps the first to illuminate modernity’s insatiable appetite for temporal progress. Today humanity continues its quest to maximize its knowledge, not to attain truth, but in a bid to achieve a new age of heaven on earth, powered by the rule of applied science. “I agree Technology is per se neutral: but [...]
For many progressives, the issue is clear: Americans hold conflicting views about what it means to be American; something must change lest the nation be torn asunder; inaction can trigger a massive civil war. Of course, history is neither as deterministic nor as simplistic as the left makes it out to be. The influential left-leaning [...]
Deep in the wellspring of science fiction is the ongoing struggle between mechanical monsters and holistic heroes. From bleak and dour tales of extermination and human destruction, to optimistic but nevertheless struggling and pathological battles to save life, science fiction has been battling with our modern monsters from the id boiling up inside of us [...]
Marilyn Monroe was the American version of the great mother goddess—our Diana, Astarte, Ishtar, Isis. But for the pagan, the Mother Goddess stood not only for sex, but also for life, fertility, prosperity, and all things abundant. Being an American and living on the precipice of the sexual revolution, Marilyn was the icon and image [...]
A remnant from the late ‘20s, “Metropolis” has come into the light once again and in a more complete way. While the industrial environment and modern work have changed, the concern for social justice and questions about technology are just as intense as they were when the film premiered. In a search for movies considered [...]
Technocrats and cosmopolitan politicians are abetting globalization for political influence, economic gain, and utopian delusion. We might add another incentive: A forgotten or deliberately ignored reverence for civic life. Might a hyper-focus on global advancement be contributing to a growing state of national anomie in liberal democracies worldwide? Globalization has become an ineluctable reality. It’s [...]
Central to classical poetry is the concept of metaphor—metaphor not simply as a rhetorical device, but metaphor as central to the poem itself. Such use of metaphor is absent from modernist poetry. In a worldview that denies absolute truth outright or at least its knowability, nothing exists for metaphor to reveal. In my last essay, [...]
Given the overwhelming rule of liberal fashion, modesty would seem a lost cause. Nonetheless, major fashion designers are returning to what was once considered a modern taboo: clothing that leaves more to the imagination, keeps hemlines down and little skin exposed. When you hear the term “modest fashion,” you think of clothing linked to religious [...]
Drag Queen story hour is actually not the worst part about public libraries these days. The worst part is that these days you can’t actually take your kids to the library and simply let them check out books on their own. So what to do? The intra-conservative battle over liberal institutions and their relation to [...]
Whether one is an atheist or a believer, all of us can agree that there is certainly something missing in our society. By entering into a dialogue with a variety of texts, the authors of “The Terror of Existence” wrestle with the idea of meaninglessness and absurdity with the seriousness and it deserves. The Terror [...]
There is an order of the universe. How refreshing are these words! They cause a certain joy, especially in our days of chaos. If an order exists, then God exists who is its Creator and source. We might then exclaim with the Psalmist how all creation gives glory to God and elevates our souls towards [...]
In an age when we have come to expect things to happen for us instantaneously, letter-writing is a school for patience. Letter-writing also has the mysterious power to convey not just the words but the presence of the person. It has been the nourishment of romantic love for ages. In writing letters, we participate in [...]