To the classical philosophers, history was cyclical. J.B. Bury observed that thought in ancient Greece was dominated by the idea of cycles, and that time was itself the enemy of man to the degree it eroded the value of the corporeal world. Marcus Aurelius wrote that the rational human mind “stretches forth into the infinitude [...]
As we look at our present nihilistic culture, malnourished in the absence of fides et ratio[1] and living only on a meager diet of panem et circenses,[2] it is hard to perceive any sign of true progress, unless we see progress as synonymous with suicide. Whether the homicide, genocide, and infanticide of secular fundamentalism can be seen as its [...]
The great British writer G.K Chesterton insisted that progress is not merely a problem but is “the mother of problems”. It is, therefore, necessary to understand what progress is, and perhaps more importantly what it is not, before we can fully understand and solve the multitude of problems to which it has given birth. One [...]
A friend once described conservatives as people who agreed about one important thing–that at some point in the past, something went terribly wrong. After that, conservatives splinter into untold numbers of camps, since they disagree ferociously about the date of the catastrophe. Most conservatives today agree that America has taken a terrible turn–that something went [...]
California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed a new law allowing “transgender” students to choose between boys’ or girls’ sports teams, and use the school locker rooms and lavatories that best suit whatever sex they are or wish to be someday. For me it comes decades too late. […]
A Summer 2013 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, (“Saying No to Teach for America”) provides yet another indication of why our children are becoming ever-less educated despite the billions we put into their education. The story tells of Teach for America’s travails in the People’s Republic of Minnesota. Teach for America is a [...]
Common Ground between Whom? A lot of people are skeptical about what the Hauenstein Center is trying to do. Seriously now: common ground between conservatives and progressives? Each camp has been telling me how much it can’t stand the other. In popular culture, conservatives regard progressives as arrogant, woolly-minded, and un-American; progressives see conservatives as [...]
At the risk of seeming too parochial, I want to outline the dimensions of a problem that has been of special concern for me and other conservative students of the American political tradition, broadly defined. This concern is not as narrow as it may at first seem. Nor, by any standard, is it insignificant; it [...]
Good people, or even just straightforward souls lacking in guile, often mistakenly attribute to their adversaries their own virtues and values. Old China Hands explain that newly-arrived gringo businessmen are often surprised to learn that many people in China regard a signed contract not as a solemn pledge, but merely as a further step in [...]
Because of its sober and realistic assumptions about human nature and the human condition, the American republic of the Constitution of 1789 is not designed to do the big things typical of empires. It is especially not designed to do that which has most characterized empire: conquer. When America does pursue empire, it undermines the [...]
The Framers’ temperament was indebted far more to the inherited culture of the “old constitutional morality” than to Enlightenment fads for remaking the world. While many did indeed believe that their success or failure would affect other nations and future generations, their enthusiasm was constrained by the enduring classical and Christian tradition. On December 4, [...]
As Sigmund Freud never said, the great unanswered question is: “What do conservatives want?” You must confess that it is a genuine question, because the characteristic conservative stance for the past two centuries has been one of opposition. We are more clear, and unified, about what we oppose than by what we propose. Stephen Holmes, in his [...]