The following is an interview between Michael Bradley and Joseph Pearce. Mr. Bradley: Dale Ahlquist maintains that we are in the midst of a G.K. Chesterton revival. Do you agree? If so, what is it about Chesterton, and/or about the present age, that is driving his renewed popularity? Can you think of a few particular [...]
One the things that Robert Nisbet made perfectly clear in the 1950s is that we could never understand the West and the new Western character under democracy and democratic influences without understanding the nuanced and complex thought of Alexis de Tocqueville. One of the things that Russell Kirk made perfectly clear in the 1950s, as [...]
Civilization itself—tradition—falls out of existence when the human spirit itself becomes confused. Civilization is what man has made of himself. Its massive contours are rooted in the simple need of man, since he is always incomplete, to complete himself. The position this paper will attempt to illustrate, if not demonstrate, is that once lost or weakened [...]
I have recently been hearing a great deal about “the tiny house movement.” Trailers for yuppies did not seem like such a big deal to me at first. But the justifications many in this movement have been making for their lifestyle choice have reminded me of some fundamental changes taking place in Americans’ priorities—changes I [...]
To Christ Our Lord I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, […]
Walker Percy and Flannery O’Connor agreed that “tenderness leads to the gas chambers,” and what they were trying to get through our thick heads is that tenderness without truth is tyranny. As Rodney Stark has pointed out in The Rise of Christianity, the Roman Empire was a harsh, unforgiving, cruel, and relentless society in which [...]
Calls for “social justice” have a bad habit of appearing in caricature: the throwback hippiedom of Occupy Wall Street, the race-baiting rallies of Al Sharpton and other hucksters, the abortion proponents who think the First Amendment was written to protect their “right” to dress up as genitalia. If ever “social justice” was a content-rich term, [...]
The Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolutionary War, was signed in Paris on September 3, 1783. By the treaty, Britain recognized the independence of the United States, and boundaries between the two countries in the New World were determined. Other issues addressed included navigation and fishing rights, outstanding debts, property rights, prisoners of [...]
René Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis, by Scott Cowdell (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2013) The work of René Girard would not seem all that relevant to Thomists. A French literary critic turned anthropologist and amateur scripture exegete, one who identifies ritual murder as the basis of all religion, culture, myth, [...]
Recently I went to see a baseball game. The New York Yankees were playing the Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium. Usually I am perfectly content to watch sports on TV in the comforts of home and avoid the contingencies of weather and traffic, and the costs of parking, tickets and concessions. I am also sensitive [...]
“I don’t believe we can have an army without music.” —Robert E. Lee “If we’d had your music, sir, we’d have whipped you out of your boots.” — A Confederate officer at Appomattox to his Union counterpart It would be hard to overestimate the ubiquity and importance of music during the American Civil War. In [...]
At first sight, it would seem that G.K. Chesterton and Alexander Solzhenitsyn have very little in common. The one has a reputation for jollity and rambunctiousness, the other for sobriety and solemn sternness. One penned swashbuckling fantasies about lovable eccentrics, the other wrote gritty works of realism set in prison camps or cancer wards. Although [...]
The Imaginative Conservative’s co-founder and editor-at-large, Bradley J. Birzer, has received another award for his outstanding, new biography of seminal conservative thinker, Russell Kirk. Following on the heels of The Imaginative Conservative’s own 2015 Book of the Year Award, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) has announced that Dr. Birzer has won the 2016 Henry and Anne [...]
John Adams wondered why men cannot live together “naturally” at peace, with the justice of their relations emerging immediately from the operation of reason in each individual. As elaborated thus far, natural law teaches that legitimate government is circumscribed by liberty in a dual sense: It derives from the consent of equally free individuals, and [...]