Glenn Arbery Archives ~ Page 9 of 15 ~ The Imaginative Conservative

Living at This Hour

By Glenn Arbery|2021-01-22T09:54:37-06:00January 22nd, 2021|Categories: Glenn Arbery, Government, John Milton, Literature, Poetry, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

Even without the content of the general historical frame, William Wordsworth’s sonnet, “London 1802,” is moving to every generation that reads it, and it is natural to compare our current political situation with the one described in the poem. All of us, of course, remember the dire circumstances of England in 1802. No? Then we [...]

Furies: The Myopia of the Present Moment

By Glenn Arbery|2021-01-15T16:52:37-06:00January 15th, 2021|Categories: Civilization, Classics, Glenn Arbery, Great Books, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

Turning away from the news and attending with imagination to the “Oresteia” takes faith, both in God and in the wisdom of our forebears. This will be a worthier endeavor, both for the present moment and for the time to come, than trying to tear down the very structures that give us the promise of [...]

Jew and Greek

By Glenn Arbery|2020-12-25T18:28:06-06:00December 23rd, 2020|Categories: Christianity, Christmas, Glenn Arbery, Great Books, Iliad, Odyssey, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

Against the backdrop of angels and gods, Jew and Greek, comes the humble birth in Bethlehem. This most momentous intervention is God’s incarnation. God is the newborn mortal child wholly dependent on others to shelter and nourish him. He is also, at the same time, the ageless and immortal God on Whom all creation depends. [...]

Pilate’s Landslide

By Glenn Arbery|2020-10-31T09:57:50-05:00October 31st, 2020|Categories: Donald Trump, Glenn Arbery, Journalism, Politics, Presidency, Senior Contributors, Truth, Wyoming Catholic College|

Editorializing in news stories, once verboten, has now become de rigueur. Journalism, never perfect at any moment of its history, but full of aspiration to be objective and balanced, has now conceded entirely to Nietzsche’s critique of empiricism: “There are no facts, only interpretations.” Many years ago, in an earlier contentious era of American politics, [...]

The Problem of Eumaios

By Glenn Arbery|2020-10-16T12:09:09-05:00October 24th, 2020|Categories: Glenn Arbery, Great Books, Homer, Odyssey, Senior Contributors, Slavery, Wyoming Catholic College|

Refusing to dwell upon the “subjunctive abyss”—that bottomless, tormenting sense of what has been denied or taken away—Eumaios the swineherd gives his energies to what he can do and do well. He practices virtue on his own with no one else to enforce it and reminds the wandering Odysseus what real nobility is. Whatever I [...]

Geography of Being

By Glenn Arbery|2021-04-22T09:48:34-05:00October 17th, 2020|Categories: Classics, Glenn Arbery, Great Books, History, Homer, Odyssey, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

When we study the classics, we might have the atlas open beside the book to remind us where we are and when we live. We can feel the overlays of history and empires and languages that sweep over the same disputed places. Relevant and contemporary to us, the great actions of mind and spirit strive [...]

Late and Soon

By Glenn Arbery|2020-10-10T17:04:07-05:00October 10th, 2020|Categories: Glenn Arbery, Leisure, Nature, Poetry, Senior Contributors, Time, Wyoming Catholic College|

The pervasive “world” is a man-made complex of ambitions and obligations, a dense social and cultural and financial web that captures us and estranges our experience from the primal realities of earth and sky. We need to remind ourselves of the blessedness that can come even in the midst of the busiest days, that subtle [...]

Core Exercises and the Election

By Glenn Arbery|2020-11-02T15:50:41-06:00September 21st, 2020|Categories: Civil Society, Glenn Arbery, Wyoming Catholic College|

Does our modern body politic, like the human body, have a core? Obviously not. In fact, it seems fair to say that no one, culturally speaking, feels anything but disorientation and dislocation in this world of COVID and radical political division. Indeed, this election season rouses more dread of coming unrest, regardless of who wins, [...]

Habit and Grace

By Glenn Arbery|2021-04-22T09:50:07-05:00September 19th, 2020|Categories: Glenn Arbery, Great Books, Homer, Iliad, Senior Contributors, St. Thomas Aquinas, Wyoming Catholic College|

The “Iliad” shows us human nature under extreme duress. Understanding Agamemnon and the consequences of his actions gives us a complex gauge of character. We come to recognize how often in daily life surprises come and how much they reveal that we stand in need of grace. Poor Agamemnon. At the very outset of Western [...]

Remembering the Normal

By Glenn Arbery|2020-08-31T15:05:43-05:00August 31st, 2020|Categories: Christianity, Community, Glenn Arbery, Happiness, Nature, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

As this strange summer of a strange year comes to an end, I am reminded of ordinary realities and experiences that now appear in a new light. At our college, classes started back up, and I cannot recall a happier sense of new beginning, partly because this, too, has been defamiliarized. On Sunday of this [...]

Science and the Beauty of Being

By Glenn Arbery|2020-08-18T14:28:37-05:00August 19th, 2020|Categories: Beauty, Glenn Arbery, Nature, Science, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

Omissions of formal and final causes in the modern scientific project lead to a sense of meaninglessness. Bringing them back allows a crucial reinterpretation of the evidence of modern science: that matter carries within it its own divine purposiveness, and it moves by its nature into greater and greater complexities of order and beauty. This [...]

Good Books for Strange Times

By Glenn Arbery|2020-12-05T01:33:34-06:00July 25th, 2020|Categories: Books, Christianity, Education, Glenn Arbery, Literature, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

Despite all efforts to cancel good sense, common decency, a real sense of justice, respect for the law, and fear of God, these things will reassert themselves, as will the gifts of faith, hope, and charity. What better summer reading for an age of martyrs than the great works of the Western tradition that can [...]

Blaming Adam

By Glenn Arbery|2020-07-04T01:23:42-05:00July 4th, 2020|Categories: American Republic, Christianity, Glenn Arbery, John Milton, Politics, Senior Contributors, Slavery, Wyoming Catholic College|

The origins of human things are flawed, no question, and inequalities remain. But should we not try to honor the principles of Washington or Jefferson and distinguish them from the prejudices of the day that they shared? The curriculum at Wyoming Catholic College has much wisdom to offer in the current crisis, much that should [...]

Masks and Uncertainties

By Glenn Arbery|2020-05-14T19:01:24-05:00May 14th, 2020|Categories: Coronavirus, Glenn Arbery, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

Most of us Americans sense a great underlying health that has paradoxically reemerged during and despite this pandemic. Most of us feel a fresh appreciation for our families, our homes, our friends, our daily bread. This situation has given us a renewed appreciation for the freedom to make our own decisions, to exercise prudence, and [...]