In his new book, "The Upswing," Harvard’s Robert Putnam argues that today’s economic, social, cultural and political cleavages mirror the Gilded Age of the 1870s, whose divisions were only healed over time through progressive reforms that re-built national unity by the 1950s. Harvard’s Robert Putnam is one of the most creative and persuasive voices of [...]
For the explosive energy and power of his music, and its exploring of unheard-of worlds of sound, Igor Stravinsky was the main figure in 20th-century music. Many of us are affected by the ethos of his music whether we are aware of it or not. Its confidence, sharpness, clarity, precision, and lack of sentimentality are [...]
We are each so wrapped up in earthly desires that you may miss a sunset cloudbank that no one else in town bothers to notice, which God created just for you and you alone to see today—just to tell you that He is still here and that He loves you. Did you see that bird [...]
The vision presented by the 1776 Commission—established by President Trump and recently quashed by President Biden—suggested that it would prove ultimately irrelevant in combatting the efforts of the 1619 Project. In fact, the 1776 Commission offered an interpretation of American history that is not only wrong-headed, but completely self-destructive. To anyone devoted to the political [...]
I went to turn the grass once after one Who mowed it in the dew before the sun. The dew was gone that made his blade so keen Before I came to view the levelled scene. […]
Paying attention to the guidance of the heart is no guarantee of prudent action, as Mark Antony and Cleopatra demonstrate with grand style, but there is something nobler in giving the heart its whole due than in bypassing its counsel and resorting to mere calculation. According to the 17th century mathematician and Catholic apologist Blaise [...]
G.K. Chesterton is so full of wisdom and wonder, and sanity and sanctity, that it comes as a surprise to learn of his darker side. Yet there were two particularly dark and bitter periods in his life that should not be overlooked. The first was the unholy and unhealthy darkness that descended during a period [...]
One can live a long life, see much, have wide-ranging experiences, and invest time in the great minds of the past, but without a basic and sincere godliness of life one can still be, to all practical purposes and in the biblical reckoning, a fool. The Imaginative Conservative recently featured an essay by historian Will [...]
Do those who seek a transformation of American society believe or disbelieve in American exceptionalism? We can assume that they do not love the country they seek to transform. After all, how can you love anything or anyone you deem to be in need of a fundamental transformation? Questions abound as the Biden Administration goes [...]
“Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives its ease, And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.” […]
René Girard was a polymath—not only writing on literature, but bringing his theory to bear on anthropology, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and theology. While I greatly admire his work, I would presume to pick a bone with his thought on sacrificial systems in religion. René Girard I was first introduced to the French thinker [...]
Having been forced into retirement by the old-school Puritans, Shakespeare is now being routinely abused by a new generation of puritans who are equally obsessed with censoring the goodness, truth and beauty of his Muse. Once upon a time, it was frowned upon to condone rape and rapists on the stage. Today it seems to [...]
The river stands to me for life and indeed the source of life in God. How lovely it is that the spot we have found for refreshment in the muggy, mosquito-ridden summer is on the Saint Croix River: Holy Cross in English. As I emerge from yet another dive into its depths and find myself [...]
“Imagination rules the world,” Russell Kirk used to say.[1] He meant that imagination is a force that molds the clay of our sentiments and understanding.[2] It is not chiefly through calculations, formulas, and syllogisms, but by means of images, myths, and stories that we comprehend our relation to God, to nature, to others, and to the self. [...]