Stars Through the Clouds, by Donald T. Williams In the preface to his long historical poem Old King Coel, Adam Fox, former Oxford Professor of Poetry, former Canon of Westminster Abbey, and former Inkling, wrote that in it he had “used verse and rhyme in a traditional way, since the experimentalists do not seem to have [...]
Chesterton proposed a new Christian humanism, while simultaneously warning of the dangers of a popular secular humanism that behaves as a religion. We need a rally of the really human things; will which is morals, memory which is tradition, culture which is the mental thrift of our fathers.[1] That was the judgment of G. K. [...]
Catholics in the Public Square is a lecture series by Dr. Bradley J. Birzer, offered by Catholic Courses. In Rudyard Kipling’s classic work The Jungle Book, one of the stories is Kaa’s Hunting. This tale is of how the young Mowgli, who is being instructed in Jungle Law by his tutor Baloo the bear, falls [...]
Given the spiritual disorder of our age, the ever-present pneumopathology of consciousness, we might be forgiven for being bit confused, anxious, and just a little depressed. Consequently, it falls to each of us to ignore the “autonomous” philosophers, who are in reality the closed system philodoxers (sophists) demanding the end to the quest and search those [...]
Margaret Thatcher Plenty of ink has been well-deployed in commemorating Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013), Britain’s greatest statesman since Churchill, who rolled back Britain’s command economy and, together with Ronald Reagan and The Blessed John Paul II, helped to end communism which was the most murderous ideology in human history. So, for now, let us [...]
The title Lost in the Cosmos is meant to be a correction to Carl Sagan’s “splendid picture book” Cosmos, which Walker Percy understands as a failed self-help book. Sagan aims to get our minds off our insignificant selves by getting it on the magnificence of the stars and planets. Every moment in scientific progress has been [...]
Distributism, as originally conceived by G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, has long ceased being a practical possibility for the majority of those living in the liberal democracies of the West. Yet this does not mean that the core principle of distributism—widely distributed private ownership of the means of livelihood—is wholly beyond our reach. Chesterton, [...]
In that year of happy memory, 1972, George McGovern, the Democratic nominee, declared he would chop defense by fully one-third. A friendly congressman was persuaded to ask Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird to expatiate on what this might mean. The Pentagon replied the Sixth Fleet might have to be pulled out of the Med, leaving [...]
As we enter a new era, in which successive generations of “post-Christian” policy, ideology, and cultural disintegration render us a largely non-Christian society, the signal importance of Christian Humanism becomes clear. The Common Mind: Politics, Society and Christian Humanism from Thomas More to Russell Kirk, by Andre Gushurst-Moore (264 pages, Angelico Press, 2013) Andre Gushurst-Moore’s [...]
I make no claims to a high level of expertise in the philosophy of Adam Smith. This is the first time I have spoken about Smith outside of a classroom setting. I assign selections from The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations in a sophomore-level core course, so the students and I [...]
America, that bright, shining land of freedom, opportunity, and progress, is irredeemably corrupt. It is in the hands of debased and hypocritical politicians, judges, businessmen, and their servants, such as the debauched Hollywood film maker Jack Woltz, the belligerent New York police captain Mark McCluskey, the rapacious Las Vegas gambler Moe Greene, and the contemptible [...]
Madsen Pirie’s science-fiction novel Tree Boy begins like Robinson Crusoe, morphs into a murder mystery and ends as an action thriller; and if that sounds confused, well, it is anything but. It targets teenagers; a venerable form with distinct protocols, that appeals to grown-ups lifelong in books such as “Treasure Island.” Amid gripping action come [...]
Does our recreational reading matter? We could consider the whole realm of recreation and entertainment in a free and virtuous society, but for the purposes of this essay I shall focus on a particularly important form of recreation: reading. Reading is obviously one of the most essentially human things we do. Reading makes possible cultural [...]
Same-sex marriage advocates argue that it is wrong to make value judgments about marriage. Yet they allow themselves to make value judgments about who should get to marry. You might recall the awful option faced by the title character in “Sophie’s Choice:” Pick one child or the other. It’s not a choice any mother wants [...]