Opposition to greatness comes from the kind of irrational irritation that made the Athenians ostracize Aristides because they were tired of hearing him called "the Just," or from egalitarian resentment, or from fear of the demands things of quality make on us... I want to steal four minutes of my talking time to speak of [...]
Christopher Dawson believed that history, far from being cyclical, was instead a particular manifestation of God’s will, and thus was “moving towards a great consummation, the revelation of the power and glory of Yahweh through his servant Israel”… As noted in previous essays in this series, Christopher Dawson (1889-1970), one of the greatest of [...]
When our dean asked me to lecture this September it was because I’ve just completed a book on time, and I’m happy to have the opportunity to talk about it. There seemed to be three possible kinds of profit that I figured might come to you and to me if I gave what one might [...]
For all that we are often lost amid the loneliness, hostage to the gravity and grief that cause us to fall, there is always that sudden and unexpected upsurge of grace and glory to lift us high above the dark and sullen weight of so many dead and dying leaves... An old and valued friend, [...]
Human beings are not simply producers; they are also lovers of beauty and contemplators of truth. They are wasters of time. The liberally educated person has a rich inner life that allows him or her to waste time well... As an undergraduate, I went for walks in rural Michigan. Sometimes alone, sometimes with others. Romantic [...]
Could a fifty-year-old, small book on grammar, speech, and rhetoric by a nearly-forgotten thinker have the power to revolutionize and re-awaken our decadent intellectual life? Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (1888-1973) might not recognize, in 2018, the America to which he came in 1933, seeking refuge from a Germany that had just elected [...]
Mr. Ropoulos and I were talking in the St. John’s College Coffee Shop, and the subject of modernity came up. So he asked me to write a few pages for his issue of the Gadfly [ed., the St. John’s student paper]. “Modernity” comes from Latin modo, “just-now.” Thus modernity is any generation’s own time; it [...]
Some time ago while wasting time I came across a seemingly profound, but ultimately silly discussion which is prevalent within popular culture. It’s called the Fermi Paradox, and it goes like this: “There are billions of stars out there like the sun. Therefore, statistically there must be billions of planets like earth where intelligent life has developed. Given the vast amount of [...]
We find joy when we lose the self in activity, in those good things that are outside ourselves: making art, doing science, playing sports, educating the young, or caring for the old and disabled. Joy is nature’s way of telling us that we are fulfilling our nature… Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series [...]
The hedonism of reading good books makes its mark on the meaning of a life, infusing it with a richness that can be had at no dearer a price than that of a library card—which is to say, it can be had for free by anyone who is not so foolish as to fail [...]
Time will never be truly ordinary, and everydayness will never dominate as long as we have recourse to silence and prayer… There is a kind of harmony between the aftermath of Pentecost and the weeks after graduation. The great feasts are over, and the intensity of activity has abated. The world enters what the [...]
Is Time itself best understood by those things in life which are Time-less? Such is the main question posed in The Habsburg Manifesto. Habsburg is not a political play but a philosophical one, whose main theme is the inner nobility of the individual as that which withstands and transcends all politics, all ideology, all [...]
The experience of nostalgia is a feeling of beauty’s remoteness, but only because it is so far in the future. It is hope… I went for a long walk in Oxford the other night. The city, of course, is always enchanting, but in early summer and at night, it is so the most. When [...]
We find joy when we lose the self in activity, in those good things that are outside ourselves: making art, doing science, playing sports, educating the young, or caring for the old and disabled. Joy is nature’s way of telling us that we are fulfilling our nature… Even a cursory glance at the interior [...]