The once-radical belief that Christopher Columbus was evil has sadly become mainstream. But Columbus was a brave and tenacious explorer—flawed, of course, like every man—who expanded the knowledge of the Old World, changing it and the New World forever. Christopher Columbus changed the world. It’s as simple as this. We might argue that these changes [...]
The apologist should appeal not only to one’s reason and intellect but also to one’s imagination, wooing the unbeliever—or a believer who has only granted intellectual consent rather than full-heart surrender—to Christ. In answer to the question “[w]hy did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about [...]
As I experienced the charm and enchantment of this local Shakespeare festival, it was easy to become forgetful in the best sense of the word, imagining a world of localism, free of globalist domination and unseen by the Eye of Sauron. A couple of years ago, I was driven by an atheist friend to the [...]
Deeper unconsciousness, not greater awareness, characterizes the modern mind. This may be the fundamental irony of our times. The intersection of ignorance and intention has been the site of art and argument for millennia. Greek tragedies such as Oedipus Rex explore the limits of knowledge to powerful effect. After visiting the theater, Athenians returned to daily life [...]
Although Gnosticism has conditioned the American mind and dominated the American character, the United States itself, as we are once again discovering, is a historical, not a providential nation uniquely blessed of God. Nothing makes inevitable continued American prosperity or even American survival. What I write here is not my teaching, but my study; it [...]
People often ask me about “spiritual reading.” I recommend Monsignor Knox. He gives us no visions or holy weirdness, which are themselves not necessary. Instead, he addresses us where we are in ordinary life. Ronald Knox (1888-1957) is a fascinating and too often underrated figure. Theologian Lawrence Cunningham observed a few years ago that, having [...]
In our present society, religion is sidelined, like an idol tucked away in a constitutional Pantheon where it can do no “harm” to the general public. However, this God does not act like the idols in the Pantheon. He is a jealous God who will not have false gods before Him. The collapse of our [...]
How could one possibly identify with the utterly pathetic and self-centred Gollum? The only answer, I came to understand with a sickening sense of resignation, is that those who identify with Gollum are those whose own identity has been gollumized by their slavery to the power of the real-life Ring which rules their lives. One [...]
Is Robert Nisbet’s “The Quest for Community” a historical artifact or a living source of wisdom? Has his insight into the natural human desire for community become a moot point in light of the rise of the State, which has replaced the church, family, and neighborhood? Of the many books that Robert Nisbet wrote during [...]
As someone who has thought of himself as a writer since before he had really even published anything, I have always loved writing and hated it. Loved it because when one is in the rhythm of tapping out thoughts on the keyboard and the juices are flowing, there is nothing greater. Okay, it’s not a [...]
One doesn’t have to agree with everything Michael Novak argued to recognize the genius of the man. Like all true conservatisms, his democratic capitalism was as much an anti-system as anything recognizable as a system. He was a giant of an intellect, and his best book deserves to be remembered, even if in friendly opposition. [...]
The Very First Thing (S.T. I, q1, a1) The Angelic Doctor began with it. Hundreds followed, yes; but first, this question. For us, though? Now? Oh, it’s not even fit To consider—at best, a digression. He called it philosophical science. His first videtur is our modern creed. We shout it loud in angry defiance: “Of [...]
As a composer Virgil Thomson was a minor master, but his critical prose ranks with some of the best writing on music in English. To pass from reading a contemporary essayist to one of the middle decades of the 20th century is often to enter another world, one of succinct elegance and inborn culture. The Missouri-born [...]
Russell Kirk’s Ten Conservative Principles reflect the way William Faulkner wrote, acted, and organized his life. As a property owner with notions of limited government, he brought that orientation to his fiction, to his work in Hollywood, to his commentary on civil rights, and to his everyday relationships with his family and community. His conservatism [...]