Ambiguities and contradictions aside, the Southern conservative tradition, by a heroic act of mind, may yet be summoned against the distortions of modernity, and, in particular, against the alluring gnostic supposition, now so prevalent, that men can alter the nature of existence and transmute the substance of being. From the perspective of the twenty-first century, [...]
Thomas Jefferson had hardly been exposed to the scientific and literary talents of black people except, to some extent, Phyllis Wheatley and Benjamin Banneker. At the end of his life, blacks in America were at the portal of coming into their own and would flower in the pursuits he most admired by the mid-late-19th century [...]
Given the nature of our politically-driven, morality-obsessed middle class society, and its passion for direct action, it follows that the more persons there are who are dedicated to solving problems, the more problems there have to be… The Unheavenly City by Edward C. Banfield (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1970) Once in a great while there [...]
Our Puritans were the most serious of philanthropists. They became pilgrims not in the service of some get-rich-quick scheme, but to make an idea real. They developed unprecedented political institutions grounded in heartfelt democratic civic duty, and they provided for the education of everyone as creatures not only born to work, but to share the [...]
We are told to be careful with our words, to be aware of how our words might make other people feel, or of how we might be misunderstood. However important is this advice (and it is both important and grossly overused), these are not the primary reasons we should be thoughtful about our language. Words [...]
The world has now seen several decades of something quite new: explicitly anti-child policies. By this one might think I am referring to the “one-child” policy in China. And to a certain extent I am. Fines and the withholding of education and other services, not to mention forced abortions, rather comfortably fit within any definition [...]
Facebook is fundamentally at odds with the social nature of the human person. It is not a “social network,” but a solitary endeavor. It does not draw together but breaks asunder. It replaces the person with an object, and if widely practiced, leads to the destination of dystopia. There has occurred at some point in [...]
The current issue of HUMANUM, the freely available online journal of the Pope John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington, DC (from the Institute’s Center for Pastoral and Cultural Research) is devoted to the crisis of fatherhood in our culture. It contains articles and book reviews devoted to the literature [...]
On the whole, at the opening of the twenty-first century, Western women enjoy a power, education, and privilege unprecedented in human history. And much of this unprecedented power and freedom has resulted from women’s political activism on behalf of themselves and other women. Just as the social institutions of the West have both impeded and [...]