It is a mistake, I think, to look at Whit Stillman as an apologist for what one of his characters in Metropolitan wanted to call the Urban Haute Bourgeoisie, or UHB. Apart from anything else, it is far from clear whether any such thing actually exists in nature in the form proposed by the term’s [...]
I consider myself a “social ecologist,” concerned with man’s man-made environment the way the natural ecologist studies the biological environment. The term “social ecology” is my own coinage. But the discipline itself boasts an old and distinguished lineage. Its greatest document is Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. But no one is as close to me in [...]
Can public education in the United States be saved? Given the stranglehold of teachers’ unions over school districts and state legislatures, the constant meddling of an ideologically motivated federal Education Department, the sheer weight of bureaucracy, and the commitment to mediocrity? Perhaps not. But we all should keep in mind that things could be far [...]
Does God jest, and does He enjoy the joke? Do the angels and saints hear chuckles booming through the firmament and know that He’s amused again? If so, what tickles His fancy? The issue is more complex than it appears, so as a reward I’ll share the best joke in the world. It could be [...]
Conservatives, or more specifically Traditionalists, find ourselves in the rather uncomfortable position of revering a group of men who espoused ideas that modern Traditionalists approach with immense reserve—namely, Liberalism and democracy. Conservatives, or more specifically Traditionalists, find ourselves in the rather uncomfortable position of revering a group of men who espoused ideas that modern Traditionalists [...]
Liberty or Equality by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn In Liberty or Equality, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn first examines the historical and current meanings of both democracy and liberalism, demonstrating why the two do not necessarily coincide. He then puts forward a series of propositions, the first of which is that the impulse of democracy as popular government [...]
How does a working class Englishman with the minimum of formal education, a history of heavy drinking, skinhead hooliganism, active racism, neo-Nazism, social violence, and two jail terms end up as one of the foremost English biographers of his generation? In Race with the Devil — My Journey from Racial Hatred to Rational Love Joseph Pearce switches [...]
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind… There was a time when the opening lines of Francis Thompson’s poem, “The Hound of Heaven”, would have been widely known. Today, as I discovered [...]
“I’ve got a pen,” said President Obama last week. “I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions…that move the ball forward.” “When I can act on my own without Congress, I’m going to do so,” the president added Wednesday at North Carolina State University. Thus did Obama signal that he [...]
In response to the Boston Tea Party, Parliament passed five of what the Americans called the “Intolerable Acts.” A group of disgruntled Marylanders reacted by forming the Annapolis Convention, which sought ways to “best secure American liberty” and which sparked resistance to British “tyranny” throughout the colonies. On January 19, 1774, the news of the [...]
The conservatism that Russell Kirk represented stretches us by requiring greater acceptance of the ineffable and the mysterious and an appreciation of the magical and the supernatural. The Conservative Mind’s author taught generations to re-enchant the world. As an undergraduate, my first encounters with Professor Jeff Hart and The Dartmouth Review eventually led to my discovery of [...]
To speak of American conservative action…may seem a contradiction in terms. The instinct of the conservative, as Lord Hailsham observes, is to enjoy life as he finds it, not to mold society nearer to his heart’s desire; nor does he think of practical politics as the end and aim of being. Family life, church, literature, [...]
Herbert Hoover perceived in the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt not a moderate and pragmatic response to economic distress but something more sinister: a revolutionary transformation in America’s political economy and constitutional order. Having espied the unpalatable future, Hoover could not bring himself to acquiesce. This excerpt is adapted from The Crusade Years, 1933–1955: Herbert [...]
Americans pride themselves on their independence, or “rugged individualism,” if you prefer. In politics this often has meant an attraction to the “outsider” who will “shake things up” in Washington by “breaking gridlock” and getting legislators from across the political spectrum to act according to common sense and the public interest. The actual political results [...]