It would be wrong to sugarcoat what a Taliban victory would mean for Afghanistan. Many Afghans will suffer when we leave, although leave we must—if not this year, then some other year… In my almost thirty-five years serving our country as a diplomat, I had only one true regret—my year in Afghanistan, 2009-2010. The camaraderie [...]
To arrive at a solution even in the political problem, the road of aesthetics must be pursued, because it is through beauty that we arrive at freedom… But I might perhaps make a better use of the opening you afford me if I were to direct your mind to a loftier theme than that of [...]
The primary purpose of the university is to preserve the great ideas of the past and to introduce the present generation to timeless conversations, thus preserving such wisdom for countless and unknown future generations… Conservatives rarely remember the profound influence Robert A. Nisbet (1913-1996) had on the press, academia, and the public at large in [...]
The classical curriculum remained the educational gold standard in nineteenth-century America. In fact, its influence grew, as women’s academies with a classical curriculum were founded all over the expanding nation… The Golden Age of the Classics in America: Greece, Rome, and the Antebellum United States by Carl J. Richard (Harvard University Press, 2009) With The [...]
If there was someone who did not exercise the Benedict Option, it was Saint Benedict himself. The problem with the Benedict Option is that it does not have the substance, unity, and goal of the Benedictine ideal that set the world on fire with the love of God. No one disputes the attractiveness of living [...]
With the New World Order and global democracy having been abandoned as America’s great goals, what is the new goal of U.S. foreign policy? What is the strategy to achieve it? Does anyone know? For the World War II generation, there was clarity. The attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec 7, 1941, united the nation as [...]
The genuine conservative is not motivated by fear, avarice, or power. The very constitution of his being is directed toward the perfection of his soul. Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Glen A. Sproviero as he explores the distinction between genuine conservatism and ideology. —W. Winston Elliott III, [...]
To recover our social traditions and the cultural knowledge undergirding them will be the job of generations. But we should work to reduce the harm visited on our society by universities increasingly dedicated to identity politics and to indoctrinating students into that politics… The problem with reforms is that they almost always are thinly-veiled programs [...]
Crumbling is not an instant's Act A fundamental pause Dilapidation's processes Are organized Decays — 'Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul A Cuticle of Dust A Borer in the Axis An Elemental Rust — Ruin is formal — Devil's work Consecutive and slow — Fail in an instant, no man did Slipping — is [...]
I am too old to want to spend the evening of my career trying to shore up a crumbling wall, when those who are in authority at the college are unwilling to listen to our pleas. No, I’d prefer to be in on building something exciting for the Church and for sheer ordinary humanity… Sometimes a [...]
Other boys wanted to be football or basketball stars, millionaires, politicians, engineers, businessmen, lawyers, and doctors. My aim was to be an Anglican country parson. T.S. Eliot and George Herbert were my role models… From time to time, I am invited to speak to groups who want to hear my conversion story. The audiences are always [...]
The task of the conservative intellectual remains the same as it has always been, though acquiring new urgency. That task is to keep alive the wisdom that we are heir to and must keep and hand on… Carlyle defined history as ”the essence of innumerable biographies.” This is only one of the many inadequate but [...]
In dark days we all need saints and heroes to inspire us. There is no doubt that we live in very dark days, and there is equally no doubt that Anthony Esolen is a great inspiration. It is not for any of us to canonize him, claiming that he is a saint, but anyone who [...]
Friedrich Hayek believed that the very institutions of liberalism and republicanism, when misused, can foster the totalitarianism of democracy… The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek (University of Chicago Press, 1944) Professor Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992) wrote The Road to Serfdom while a professor at the London School of Economics as the allied war [...]