‘Mob’ is an interesting word because of its dual meaning. It means not only ‘organized crime’, that is, a small group of men working corporately and criminally in their own self-interest, but it also means a large group of rancorous, disgruntled people rioting for special interests they share in common. This irony is particularly interesting [...]
Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue can be taught? [to continue] Or if not teachable, is it acquired by practice, or if neither, whether men possess it by nature or in some other way?” So begins Plato’s dialogue, Meno, opening as abruptly upon the reader as my remarks have upon you this afternoon. You [...]
“Austerity” has become the watchword of the year. Governors, prime ministers, and presidents around the world are talking about cutting welfare benefits, curtailing public union power, and reducing deficits. We’ve over-promised at the public trough, and now we must pay the price. Whoever is elected president in November is going to face the need to [...]
I’ve been asked why I’ve stopped talking about movies. It’s not that I’ve stopped seeing them. The truth is that movies have gotten so much worse than the best of TV that they haven’t captured my full attention. I mean, of course, the excellent shows you can see—mainly but far from exclusively—on HBO. Let me pick [...]
Russell Kirk When Russell Kirk passed away he was surrounded by his loving family, in the house he built on his ancestral land. This was fitting for a man who always wished to lead a life of “decent independence.” He had sought to provide for his family while remaining free from compromising entanglements. [...]
Eric, Gannon, and Nate Schlueter have graciously asked us to present our arguments on the relationship between capitalism and Christianity. The subtitle is something to the effect of “can a good Christian” embrace “the morality of capitalism.” Whether I should or not, I will interpret this question in my own way and attempt to answer [...]
Usually, not always, the peace party wins. Gen. Sherman’s burning of Atlanta and March to the Sea ensured Abraham Lincoln’s re-election in 1864. William McKinley, with his triumph over Spain and determination to pacify and hold the Philippines, easily held off William Jennings Bryan in 1900. Yet Woodrow Wilson won in 1916 on the slogan, [...]
Nikolai Lenin said that when the time came to hang the capitalists, they would trip over each other to sell the communists the necessary rope. One is reminded also of the similar case of a Canadian mining firm whose owner in order to keep the business worked with Castro and generously donated money to his [...]
Stoicism did not serve as mere speculation for the Hellenistic Greeks; it revealed the path to a virtuous life. And the end and the beginning were always there Before the beginning and after the end. And all is always now. Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, [...]
Wealth and Poverty: A New Edition for the Twenty-First Century The great temptation and delusion of socialist regimes is to attempt to guarantee the value of things rather than the ownership of them. This was also the great mistake of the Bush and Obama administrations’ response to the crisis of 2008. Value depends on dedicated [...]
American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy, by Andrew J. Bacevich, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002. xiii+300 pp. Andrew Bacevich’s American Empire is a first-rate book: important, interesting, and well-written. It stands outside mainstream writing on international relations as a result of its grasp of practicalities, and Bacevich’s preference for rigorous analysis [...]
October 11th was “National Coming Out Day.” Every year, this observance reminds me of the time when I first came out, when I was a graduate student. Though I was raised in a religious environment in which orientation was not made a central issue, it had become a very central issue for me during my [...]
Janet Himmelman swept back her hair, turned away from the computer screen and set her spectacles on her desk; this was the part of her job that she hated the most. She looked the nervous young man in his eyes and spoke as kindly as she could. “I’m sorry, Charles, but you simply do not [...]
Democracy and Leadership by Irving Babbitt. Foreword by Russell Kirk, Liberty Classics, 1979, 390 pp. The appearance of a new edition of Irving Babbitt’s Democracy and Leadership (first published in 1924) is one sign among many that interest in this controversial thinker is growing markedly. Several scholarly studies related to his work have been published [...]