Those of us who bemoan the “death of the liberal arts” do not do so simply because the jobs of professors are at stake, but because we believe that liberal learning is the only fit preparation for any portion of life—especially one that involves responsibility for the common good. Those of us who have become [...]
Does online education mean the end of universities? Or, if pursued with an understanding of its limits and of the necessity of a non-virtual community of learning behind it, could online learning be part of the idea of a university? Is there anything better for a teacher than watching one’s students do great things? I [...]
Tomie dePaola understood that life is difficult and yet redemption is possible. What marks him out ultimately as a conservative of the imaginative variety is that his understanding of childhood includes not only the child-protagonist’s sense of self, but also the sense of self of the other children and indeed the adults in the stories. [...]
My initial skepticism about the way in which we have dealt with this real but exaggerated threat has only grown. In fact, the lockdowns and the shuttering of our medical and economic system have now become a greater threat than the disease itself. After my essay on conservative skepticism about both the severity of the [...]
Some articles must be published at one time and not another, either because their stories are simply of the moment or because circumstances reveal them to be impossible for the moment. “‘Dying for Sex’ podcast follows terminal cancer patient’s wild sexcapades” is one of them. Published in the New York Post on March 4, a [...]
Do we really have to shut down our entire country because of the danger of the coronavirus? I confess I’m still not sure exactly about the wisdom of it. I have more thoughts about that, but I’ll save them for a future essay. Right now, the reality is that #canceleverything is winning the day and [...]
Like all human beings, the atheist ones I’ve seen and known are always prattling on about justice and injustice. But atheists don’t seem to realize that there is such a category as “should” because there is a design for the world that we perceive. Atheists do not believe in God, but I confess that I [...]
The way to preach the greatness of what Christians call Lent is to preach the demanding side of it. Tell those around you to give things up until it hurts a bit, till they feel an ache inside that they now can’t pretend to fill with double-stuffed Oreos and beers and binge-watched television series. Then [...]
What makes an article, or essay, great? Does it need to challenge us to move in a different direction, or can it also challenge us to move higher up and further in to the truths we already hold? You’ve seen it on a thousand social media posts. “This is a great article!” Sometimes you will [...]
My progressive friends assure me that they are looking out for children, minorities, and especially minority children. The problem with this conceit is that when it comes to closing the achievement gap between Latino and white children on the one hand, and black and white children on the other, the only progressive cities are conservative. [...]
California’s AB-5 law severely limits the type of freelance work that people can do. Several other blue states, including New York and New Jersey, are considering some variation on this unintentionally harmful law. It would be nice if legislators aiming to help workers would recall the adage, “First, do no harm.” Is schadenfreude, the phenomenon [...]
We’ve been dumping Shakespeare, Milton, and Eliot in favor of the latest, trendy lesbian poet or controversial rapper. And then we wonder why fewer and fewer college students are majoring in English. What can be done to renew and revive our English departments in this age of political correctness? Q. What’s the difference between a [...]
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 [...]
Terrence Malick’s “A Hidden Life” does not drag. Its deliberate pace describing why its protagonist—a Catholic who defied Hitler’s Reich by refusing military service—died is a moving icon, a window into that mystery of why and how silence and conscience lead to true freedom. “There isn’t any twirling, is there?” I asked my former student [...]