Glenn Arbery Archives ~ Page 2 of 15 ~ The Imaginative Conservative

True Fourth

By Glenn Arbery|2023-07-03T16:17:35-05:00July 3rd, 2023|Categories: American Founding, Freedom, Glenn Arbery, Independence Day, Liberty, Patriotism, Timeless Essays, Wyoming Catholic College|

Why is the true Fourth such a powerful image of liberty? Because the things that most deepen us and rouse us are dangerous. An appetite for the real good means being willing to face danger, and the whole point of the liberty we celebrate is that we learn to handle danger, to face it responsibly, [...]

The Nigerian Gift

By Glenn Arbery|2023-06-30T13:15:12-05:00June 30th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Christianity, Glenn Arbery, Wyoming Catholic College|

Sometimes, looking at the Church from a new perspective can remind us of what it’s all about. Wyoming Catholic College is unique among its peer institutions for a number of things, but one of them is that we breathe with “both lungs” of the Church, as John Paul II described the complementarity of the Roman [...]

Great Books and Horses

By Glenn Arbery|2023-06-23T19:34:35-05:00June 23rd, 2023|Categories: Featured, Glenn Arbery, Great Books, Liberal Learning, Timeless Essays, Wyoming Catholic College|

The greatest books of the Western world have relied upon the knowledge of horses whose natures have so influenced and symbolized our own. When my wife Virginia and I first came to Wyoming Catholic College in 2013, we had only notions about horses. Each of us had been astride some poor rope-led nag or other [...]

Up From “Parenting”

By Glenn Arbery|2023-06-16T11:12:04-05:00June 16th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Glenn Arbery, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

I wonder what happens when we turn the lifelong, emotionally charged, familial relations central to who we are into some culturally inflected abstraction called “parenting.” The way back to the good life—and there is a widespread sense that we have lost it or forgotten it—depends much more than we realize on the language we use [...]

Technology and Silence

By Glenn Arbery|2023-06-10T12:25:17-05:00June 10th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Christianity, Glenn Arbery, Science, Senior Contributors, Technology, Wyoming Catholic College|

The obvious question is rarely asked: what is the end of this enlargement of human control and this endless technological reaching? I sense a communal dread about it. Are we building the Tower of Babel—a recurring trope this week? Are we headed for the annihilation of humankind? This past week, adults from across the country [...]

Old and New

By Glenn Arbery|2023-06-03T15:52:18-05:00June 3rd, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Classical Education, Classical Learning, Glenn Arbery, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

Classical schools honor the old. Reading and discussing a great work in high school give the mind a preparatory receptivity until greater experience can broaden and deepen the field of reference, at which time studying the same work in college can be an experience formative for life. These past two weeks, I have had occasion [...]

The Source of Creativity & the Wellspring of Culture

By Glenn Arbery|2023-05-19T11:01:46-05:00May 19th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Classical Education, Classical Learning, Glenn Arbery, Liberal Learning, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

In classical education, we are not talking about tradition as the acquisition of monuments, but as a permanence gathered from moments of participation capable of being lived and lived again and then passed on to be taken up yet again by generations yet to come, with our own additions and our own achievements of greatness. [...]

Friendships and Departures

By Glenn Arbery|2023-05-05T19:54:39-05:00May 5th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Friendship, Glenn Arbery, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

Of all the phenomena of a human life, few surpass friendship in importance. In fact, looking back from early in my eighth decade, I find that I most clearly remember the inner meaning and importance of the past in terms of friendships. Too infrequently as we age, it becomes difficult to open the heart as [...]

Identity and Its Discontents

By Glenn Arbery|2023-04-28T12:50:06-05:00April 28th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Dante, Glenn Arbery, Senior Contributors, William Shakespeare, Wyoming Catholic College|

Who, in this climate, when identity politics rule the publishing world, would have dared to publish Dante or Shakespeare, both of whom imagined characters who were different from themselves? The realm of Paradise in Dante’s great Commedia is an acquired taste, as my sophomores in Humanities might tell you. Most readers of Dante enjoy the [...]

Guided by Pleasure

By Glenn Arbery|2023-04-21T13:54:39-05:00April 21st, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Dante, Glenn Arbery, Liberal Learning, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

As another school year draws toward its close, it is a good occasion to consider what the whole of an education or “leading out” really entails. Who better than Dante to remind us? In Canto 27 of Purgatorio, Dante gives us one of the most liberating passages in literature. After his long journey down through [...]

Inhuman Oracles and the True World

By Glenn Arbery|2023-03-10T11:19:42-06:00March 10th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Glenn Arbery, Senior Contributors, Technology, Wyoming Catholic College|

In these strange times, the arrival of ChatGPT, a dispassionate voice that draws upon vast resources of knowledge (far beyond human capacity), might seem like a good thing. Late last semester, the mother of one of our freshmen sent me an article about a professor who had stopped assigning essays. He had realized that with the [...]

Passing the Dragon

By Glenn Arbery|2023-02-25T14:17:06-06:00February 25th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Christianity, Glenn Arbery, Lent, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

“The dragon sits by the side of the road, watching those who pass," St. Cyril warned. "Beware lest he devour you. We go to the Father of Souls, but it is necessary to pass by the dragon.” Lent is not an occasion to pass the dragon, but to prepare for the confrontation. In the first [...]

Judge Not

By Glenn Arbery|2023-02-17T16:57:04-06:00February 17th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Glenn Arbery, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

To most of the world outside the Church, a controversy over a brief part of the Mass will seem absurd, especially since it is called “the sign of peace.” My column last week, “The Snub of Peace,” drew more substantial direct responses from people on our mailing list that anything else I’ve written, and the republication [...]

The Snub of Peace

By Glenn Arbery|2023-02-10T16:53:32-06:00February 10th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Glenn Arbery, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

After all these years, I am still sometimes taken aback when someone in church refuses the sign of peace. Converts to Catholicism, as everyone knows, bring a fresh perspective to the experience of the Church. Going to confession is new and harrowing and liberating in ways that a “cradle Catholic” might not quite appreciate. Participating [...]