JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS.* …Recently on this virtual stoop, questions have arisen about the “tone” of discussion generally, and particularly in the comment section (I refuse the neologism “combox” as an ugly stain on a beautiful language).
I regard these kinds of questions to
May 2009
A few weeks ago a friend’s ten-year-old daughter came home from school, turned to her mother with a frown, and speaking low, so as to stay out of earshot of a younger sibling, asked, “Mom, what does the word ‘contraception’…
ROCK ISLAND, IL… Last week in “Gnosticism and the Accumulation of Scheiss” I suggested (to the cheers of those who agreed and—odd how this works—the jeers of those who didn’t) that a gnostic impulse pretty much governs our education and
A retirement dinner party for an Ivy League professor follows certain conventions. It begins with the cocktail hour where guests renew old and make new acquaintances while sipping wine and nibbling appetizers. Then follows the meal where table assignments deepen opportunities for…
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.…
Remarking on Jeremy Beer’s article on meritocracy, Patrick Deneen concludes with this grim, but correct, observation:
This, in a microcosm, is a central paradox of our political system: our cosmopolite meritocrats theoretically admire localism but abhor the idea
Devon, PA.… When given the opportunity, I have made no secret of my great admiration for James Kalb’s The Tyranny of Liberalism. Readers of FPR may, from time to time, have encountered my deferring the answer to some argument
Jeremy Beer has masterfully articulated the ideology of meritocracy and the destruction it wreaks upon the small towns and non-major cities of the nation. Still, a number of sympathetic readers are beginning to ask: “nice in theory, how to change…
James has penned an eloquent essay on his son this morning. I am moved again to remind us all of a central truth. And that truth is that abortion remains the spritiual symbol and actual bloody policy that embodies and…
Property in the hands of labor is freedom.
Labor in the hands of property is slavery.
–Dmitri Kleiner
From the earliest days of Distributism, distributists have exhibited a certain disinterest in economics. This is a rather odd stance for the…
At “Minding the Campus,” there’s an essay by ME that touches on the implicit similarities between our technocratic administrative class and our post-modern radical professoriate. For all their differences they are in fervent agreement that what is most to be…
Difficult economic times force people to confront the problem of economic security. In fact, it’s easy to imagine that, in an ideal world, economic insecurity would be a thing of the past. With that worry gone, we could spend our…
An article in last week’s Washington Post explores the revival of communities as a response to the economic crisis. According to the article,
As the neighbors got out of their homes and started talking to each other, the sense of…
My “Place” (Photo by AMS)
JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS. …If you think I’m reprinting yet another old essay because I’m too lazy or beset to keep up with my bettors on this fine site, you are probably right. But so as
Devon, PA.… Outside of certain, very particular, Christian circles, one seldom hears much about man’s fallen nature anymore; and yet, as G.K. Chesterton once observed, original sin may be the only religious dogma we can confirm simply by
Interesting article in the Philadelphia Inquirer today about a blind man from Brussels who, not bein’ from around these parts, didn’t realize that American freedom meant the Freedom Not to Question Official Procedures. Also the Freedom to Act Like a…
