A reformed history must be imaginative and humane; like poetry, like the great novel, it must be personal rather than abstract, ethical rather than ideological. Like the poet, the historian must understand that devotion to truth is not identical with the cult of facts. The middle decades of our twentieth century have been marked intellectually [...]
Irving Babbitt believed that man defined himself not by his rights, but by his duties, and particularly how willing he was to restrain his darker impulses and sacrifice himself for another… Famously, when Paul Elmer More and Irving Babbitt were debating one another while on a walk, the former, exasperated, asked: “Good God, man. Are [...]
In the process of revitalizing Britain’s governing principles, the American founding also unleashed the ideas of liberty and equality to an unexpected degree. A heavy overcast settled over the Huron Valley. Expecting snow at any moment, I sought shelter in Haven Hall. My hope was to intercept Dr. Tonsor coming down from his office, then [...]
The cosmopolitan Jefferson—enlightened, tolerant, humane—is at the same time the best example of the sensitive provincial. And in getting back to the provincial Jefferson, the essential Jefferson, we recover one of the valuable links of our national heritage. Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join David Hoeveler as he [...]
The constitutional inheritance is not merely a gift to be expended or consumed; it is a responsibility to be stewarded. This sense of intergenerational obligation—debts to the past and future—is the most solid and powerful grounding for originalism and respect for constitutional form… The essential question confronting American conservatism is what, precisely, it aspires to conserve. [...]
Shakespeare shows us that there are none so blind as those who will not see because they prefer the darkness of sin to the light of virtue… All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many [...]
Are the humanities worth studying? Art, literature, and philosophy don’t do anything. They simply are… In the Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde wrote: “All art is quite useless.” Wilde meant this not in a disparaging way but rather as a compliment to all things beautiful. He didn’t want to assign any [...]
Destruction is always a net negative. Whether it’s a hurricane, tornado or earthquake or even a war, there is no silver lining in destroying capital. As Hurricane Harvey, now tropical storm Harvey, makes its way across the southern U.S., estimates have already come in as to the cost of the storm. According to AccuWeather, Harvey is expected [...]
Is it not a fact that day after day and with immense energy and equally immense infatuation we are busy creating a material environment which suffocates the soul of man and causes psychical lesions of an immeasurable and incurable kind? And is it not a fact that we do this in the name of bare [...]
The floodwaters of Hurricane Harvey washed away the dividing lines of race, religion, and class, revealing character and the basic decency at the core of what it means to be human. What makes Houston’s heart beat most truly is faith in God… Hurricane Harvey revealed the huge heart of Houston through the biggest natural disaster [...]
The dismantling of the idea of the West unwittingly wrought massive damage upon the very ways in which Western citizens viewed themselves, disconnecting them not only from other cultures and peoples but also from one another. The dismantling of the idea of the West began when medieval philosophers began re-introducing the Sophist notions reduced to [...]
The culture of Houston really shines through during events like Hurricane Harvey. Despite what the narrative spinners would have you believe, we are not rugged individualists; we are rugged communitarians... Narratives are not necessarily built on facts; they’re built on stories, pictures, graphics, and videos. Ideally, we want our narratives to be aligned with the [...]
Many parts of North America were settled by Christians who devoted their communities to the service of God. Arguments and assumptions drawn from Christian theology were part of the background for the framing and ratification of the Constitution, as well as many of the great controversies of American history… In 2010 the Texas state school [...]
The mediocre man perhaps takes comfort from the fact that there will never be a monument erected in his honor. He has taken great pains to do nothing extraordinary to merit such an action… As the violent Statue War now rages, a nervous man scornfully watches from a distance. He doesn’t understand what the uproar [...]