“The Cassandra of ‘The Machine.’” Charles Carman reviews Kingsnorth’s new book, and while he finds some flaws that frustrates him, he also argues that it has warnings we should take seriously: “I don’t find Kingsnorth’s story overall to be specious. Something indeed is afoot, and it may indeed destroy us. And this is the terrible challenge of Kingsnorth’s book. I might wish for a more compelling account. Yet, being slowly destroyed is itself a state of ambiguity, the definiteness of which is found precisely when it is too late. Something is being unmade, and if we wait till we are certain of the details, the risk taken in delay is complete forfeiture. A human future, whatever may come, may depend on taking definite steps before one has complete confidence.”
“Our Unfinished Republics.” Sean Irving outlines a tradition of thought that’s aimed to defend liberty against both political and economic threats: “Economic republicanism in the 19th century applied these older concerns to the new industrial economies of the West. Its ideals shaped some of the era’s most important political and social conflicts: driving British trade unionists to fight for collective bargaining and shorter hours, energising the revolutions of 1848, and propelling land reform and anti-monopoly struggles later in the century.” (Recommended by Dominic Garzonio.)
“Finding the Founding.” Casey Spinks begins a series of essays that offer a close reading of the Declaration of Independence. Stay tuned for some FPR-related news about what promises to be a perceptive contribution to civic dialogue: “We are approaching the 250th anniversary of this country’s Declaration of Independence. It is both an event and a document to be remembered. Yet our memory seems so frail, and the distance between then and now seems so great. The events that guide the way we live, write, and think are very different from the events that guided the words, thoughts, and choices of those Founders long ago. So what is there to remember? We need to “re-member” in an almost literal sense: to put ourselves back together, to make ourselves whole, as one American people, with the help of our deep past. But we’re not sure that’s possible. We don’t even assume there is one American people anymore. I say “we,” because all of us, left and right and center, share this suspicion, even as we don’t share much else. We seem united mainly by what we lack, by the missing answer to our question: what is there left of America, and of the American people?”
“Authority Is a Responsibility, Not an Excuse.” Bonnie Kristian responds to the death of Alex Pretti and the tactics that ICE is pursing: “The Trump administration should be able to enforce immigration law without tear-gassing infants, arresting peaceful clergy, smashing the windows of open cars, and pepper-spraying protesters in the face from four inches away. It should be able to do it without using cheap AI edits to callously lie about Americans. It should be able to do it without making a sick joke—and I do hope it was a joke—about putting citizens in databases for the mere expression of dissent. . . . And most of all, the Trump administration should be able to execute on its immigration mandate without executing people like Alex Pretti in the streets.”
“Minneapolis Is a Second Amendment Wake-Up Call.” Tyler Austin Harper defends the Second Amendment against ICE abuses: “I’ve spent nearly my entire life in American gun culture: My father was a combat veteran turned state-police officer; I come from a hunting family; my first job was at a gun club; I regularly invest hours at the range, and burn through 1,000 or more rounds of pistol and rifle ammo every month. I admit that by the standards of some readers, I no doubt qualify as a ‘gun nut.’ And I have had innumerable arguments with liberal friends about the Second Amendment. My views are unfashionable in some of the circles in which I travel. I believe, and have always believed, that despite the National Rifle Association’s faults, the organization is correct about the core purpose of the Second Amendment: to prevent government tyranny. And because tyrannical governments can be either liberal or conservative, the Constitution protects those on the left and right equally.”
“Love the People the News Talks About.” Gracy Olmstead offers some wise thoughts about how we should engage with the news in our very online age: “Love takes time, attention, and care—three human habits that, I would argue, our current news environment is attacking and weakening. When we read or watch news outlets, it becomes so easy to objectify real human communities and actors. The battle-oriented rhetoric of our era makes this even worse.”
“Strains, Tensions, Exaltations.” Sheena Meng ostensibly pens a requiem for Raritan but along the way also probes the way magazines can spark intellectual life: “What is more compelling is the idea that a reading public can be produced; that, rather than expecting that public to demonstrate “a spontaneous interest in high culture,” more rarefied readers ought to remember that “people first need to know that they are endowed with cultural treasures before they can be expected to care about them.” (Thus Poirier’s decision to co-found the publisher Library of America, a Herculean effort to remind North American readers of their literary inheritance by collecting and publishing what might have otherwise scattered to the winds.) Performing—in other words, demonstrating—the work of reading, writing and knowing was, he felt, the only way to teach it, or to teach people to aspire to it.”
“Isolation and Community in Rural America.” Charlie Cotherman reads two novels and ponders what we might do about the epidemic of loneliness: “Perhaps in our efforts to address loneliness, we need to be more literal, more concrete. Perhaps the only way to address loneliness is by giving loneliness an address. It seems to me that our efforts to take on loneliness in general only lead to more loneliness in the particular places we call home. If the problem of loneliness doesn’t have an address—if we aren’t talking about loneliness in this community and this place—we will only name a problem without ever getting any closer to solving it. That’s why we need front porches, sidewalks, local churches, in-person reading groups, recreational sports teams, and a wide array of local institutions.”
