The case for conservatism rests on the reality of vibrant, interdependent social communities that precede and supersede government. The conservative movement makes its most humane case for limited government when it chooses to paint a picture of a healthy network of friends, families, and neighbors instead of shouting “tyranny” and “communist” at those who support [...]
Even “academic” specialization might be recovered as desirable, but desirable as a means to a higher end in service to the body of community, not merely servicing the appetitive order of individuals collectively called society, but in service to the community as a body of members. In that term society the nature of community, as [...]
G.K. Chesterton And at this I cursed them and kicked at them and made an exhibition of myself; having made myself the champion of the Lion’s Tooth, with a dandelion rampant on my crest. Gilbert Keith Chesterton (d. 1936), who wrote these words, was an English “man of letters” – a novelist, journalist, [...]
There’s nothing like having school-age children to get you thinking about education. Yes, I went to college for eleven straight years (from B.A. to Ph.D.), and yes, I have taught at the college level for eleven years, too. But I had never thought so much about education—specifically, what kind of education is best for kids [...]
I imagine that on Parents’ Weekend there might be some parents attending this once weekly occasion when the college assembles to hear a lecture. By its very name, a lecture is read—but read out loud, delivered in the writer’s voice. Thus, the sequence goes: I thought, I wrote, I read, I speak. Although this is the principal way of [...]
Mark Twain, that teller of tall tales from the American frontier, has an almost mythical status in American literature and culture. The white suit, the wild hair, and the homespun humor have combined to add to his obvious literary skills a mystique that has spawned heroic portrayals in biographical one-man shows and works of fiction [...]
The Kiss by Auguste Rodin by Rachel Lu and Regis Martin Rachel Lu: When Adults Encourage Self-Destructive Behavior in the Young Sex has consequences. I realize that admitting this probably marks me as some sort of misogynist, but somehow I can’t help myself. For one thing, I have it on good authority that even in [...]
There was a fascinating piece about Ben Nelson’s attempt to create a new “elite” university this weekend at the Wall Street Journal. His goal, he claims, is to make his own “Minerva University” a better Harvard. As my wife read the article to me (we’re traveling West, an annual All-Birzer family extravaganza—my very first pieces for [...]
The final eight episodes of Breaking Bad have come and gone. If you didn’t follow the series, you missed what many media critics called the best show on television and one of the best of all time. Perhaps so. For many, it has been a five year guilty pleasure. The writing is quite good, and characters [...]
Thoughts and Adventures by Winston S. Churchill (380 pages, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2009) This material progress, in itself so splendid, does not meet any of the real needs of the human race…. No material progress, even though it takes shapes we cannot now conceive, or however it may expand the faculties of man, can bring [...]
My name’s Friday. Good Friday. But it’s just a nickname. On the force we’re all good. That’s our job. (Music: DUM-de-dum-dum!) Angela’s my partner. But don’t let her looks fool you. This blonde’s the toughest officer on the beat. She fills out her civvies like a teenager’s dream, but don’t get any ideas. She left [...]
Is the Second Reconstruction over? The first ended with the withdrawal of Union troops from the Southern states as part of a deal that gave Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency after the disputed election of 1876. The second began with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a century after Appomattox. Under the VRA, Southern states [...]
Since the 1960s, the lover of classical music has increasingly found himself a loner in most social circles, appreciated by an ever-shrinking number of people. “I am never merry when I hear sweet music.” —Jessica in The Merchant of Venice, Act V, Scene I Since the triumph of rock n’ roll in the 1960s, the [...]
C. S. Lewis: His Literary Achievement, Colin Manlove C. S. Lewis’s well-deserved reputation for being an apologist who conveyed the ageless truths of Christianity in a fresh, genial way that could speak with equal power to logicians hungry for rational proofs and lovers of beauty hungry for mystery has sometimes obscured the fact that he [...]