The Dynamics of World History, by Christopher Dawson, edited by John J. Mulloy. (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956) None of the disciplines has been more adversely affected by the increasing fragmentation and social dissolution which has afflicted our liberal civilization than has the study of history. The pursuit of the Fact, isolated from tradition [...]
The purpose of university education is not meant to be therapeutic but formative. The university should concerned with the pursuit of truth and should mark a farewell to childhood and childish things. The recent antics at the nation’s universities have led people to expect almost anything from academia. There are safe spaces that resemble adult [...]
The West has been living in the shadow of its own demise for two centuries or more—and not merely since, say, the late 1960s. The only response to such a situation is to rediscover, hoard, and cherish the cultural treasures of our past. “The Romans of the Decadence” by Thomas Couture That Western [...]
Should Christians support capitalism? Surely yes, if only because capitalism deserves most of the credit for the decline of extreme poverty in the world, from about one-third of the world’s population a generation ago, to about one-tenth today, using World Bank definitions of poverty. But capitalism has its moral dangers, one of which is that [...]
And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. Ronald Reagan delivered the following [...]
Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Gerhart Niemeyer as he explores the role and nature of ideology as applied to politics, through the lens of Russell Kirk. —W. Winston Elliott III, Publisher Russell Kirk “Philosophy”—love of wisdom—is a word first used by Heraclitus. “Sophia” as listed [...]
A recent essay in another online journal tells a heartwarming story from Kansas City that involves tiny houses. For those of you who do not know what a “tiny house” is, it is simply a house that is very small (obvious enough?) meaning 400 square feet or less. I have written, here, about the “tiny [...]
In the sea, Biscayne, there prinks The young emerald, evening star, Good light for drunkards, poets, widows, And ladies soon to be married. […]
The cry, “That violates the separation of church and state!” has been the centerpiece of the secularist drive to marginalize Christianity in the public sphere since the 1940s. The real—and often neglected—question is what precisely that separation means and how it should be interpreted and applied. […]
"The East is another name for the West"—Sufi proverb In Memory of Stephen J. Masty When, in happier days, she was inscrutable "Arabia," and felix the plucky cognomen-ex-virtute honoring a mythological lineage of Sheban queens, Roman misadventure, and flourishing trade routes scented in cinnamon and frankincense, the greatest of English explorers submitted to her virgin [...]
Be careful what you read—it may change you, for better or worse. In the case of Joseph Pearce, his early reading made him a violent white supremacist. It also landed him in jail. While there, he continued to read; only this time, he read the works of G.K. Chesterton. It was not so much that [...]
For the first time in nearly a decade I again have the great pleasure of teaching a freshman language tutorial. I am myself a believer in the "spirit" of a tutorial, because I am convinced that what happens in class for well or ill is nothing beyond the accumulated effect of the goodness or deficiency [...]
We were preparing the annual financial report to the parish the other day, and the tricky part of the debate was how to present complex details in a simple way that was not misleading or open to misinterpretation. I commented that we must aim for complete transparency, at which point a member of the committee [...]
The Federal Government is the creature of the States. It is not a party to the Constitution, but the result of it—the creation of that agreement which was made by the States as parties. It is a mere agent, entrusted with limited powers for certain specific objects; which powers and objects are enumerated in the [...]