In our new social paradigm, moral confusion abounds. Two popular ideologies—Marxism and Libertarianism—attempt to address this confusion. However, neither accounts for the fundamentally social nature of the human person: the way shared values conceive culture and art, how the primacy of belief binds communities together, or that we are born knowing we were created to [...]
The evidence is more than clear: Communism, socialism, and progressivism have each made huge comebacks, re-entering political discourse. Even their titles have reacquired respect and a semblance of dignity in many circles of public thought. What happened? The West won the Cold War in 1989, didn’t she? I am fiercely proud of the fact that [...]
Though they should be on the same side in their opposition to globalism, Russia and Poland have recently entered into an unholy spat over the history of World War II. The Russian Ambassador to Poland stated recently in an interview with the Russian news site rbc.ru that relations between Russia and Poland are “the worst [...]
“Red Metal” fully understands that we live in a post-Communist world, a world of fundamentalisms as well as of nation-states and tenuous alliances. I highly recommend the novel, not only for its entertainment value, but also for its ability to ask all the right questions we Americans need to be asking. Red Metal, by Mark [...]
A few years back, a film, The Act of Killing (2012), ran at a London cinema for 52 weeks. Such a run is unusual for any film: even more so for a documentary feature about Indonesia. The film’s subject matter revolves around one man, Anwar Congo, who is convivial, charming even, and with real screen [...]
The new 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 [...]
He is thinking: “See how God writes straight on crooked lines.” —Machado de Assis What realistic form can a manifesto of Neo-Romanticism take in a positivistic age? How many people will even recognize it as such? In a time when life has been cheapened by the talons of radical ideology, those who cultivate a sense [...]
Gaius and Tiberius Gracchus have long held the reputation of proto-Communists. However, it is time we re-examine this label and determine for ourselves the inadequacy of this nomenclature, and the false impression that it gives to men whose reputation has been sullied by false accusations of Revolution. Gaius and Tiberius Gracchus are known as the [...]
Ryszard Legutko gained fame this spring when he was informed by Middlebury College’s president that his lecture was canceled. Though 40 brave students gathered to hear Prof. Legutko speak in a classroom, the irony was that the episode confirmed his very point that liberal democratic societies have become in many ways just as barbarous and oppressive [...]
Barbara J. Elliott remembers the fall of the Berlin Wall, and draws attention to the individuals who, through faith and love, made this momentous event possible. Having interviewed many of those who were imprisoned, beaten, ostracized, and forced underground during the rule of the communist regime, Professor Elliott tells with passion the stories of the [...]
Marxism can only be forced into a marriage with Christianity if it is misinterpreted. Christians and conservatives can and should read Karl Marx carefully, and even develop an appreciation for his genius. But there is no Christian case to be made for Marxism. […]
Today, China has entered a period of general crisis. It was brought about not merely by slow economic growth and its attendant problems, but by a total upheaval touching every aspect of life in the Middle Kingdom: economic and political, intellectual and religious. Mark this date on your calendar: November 19, 2023. This date would [...]
Fr. Jerzy Popiełuszko preached faith and freedom to the people of Poland. The communists hated him, and someone ordered his murder. But we have this enduring commandment from Fr. Jerzy: “Defeat evil with goodness!” It remains valid even as communism has morphed into post-communism in the former Soviet zone, and reemerged as radical secular and [...]
Somehow Joseph Stalin cannot be reduced merely to just another Russian autocrat or just another communist dictator. Not for him the “banality of evil.”… Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928 By Stephen Kotkin (Penguin Press, 2014) Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator By Oleg Khlevniuk, translated by Nora Seligman Favorov (Yale University Press, 2015) The Last [...]