Articles Archive
The Computer Made Me Do It
The habit of questioning, of civil debate, of negotiating, and compromise are the habits necessary for a thriving democracy.
Dare We Conform to Our Natures?
Mecosta, MI. A FPR reader has written a fine essay dilating on a theme introduced in my own most recent piece (which was, in fact, largely a set of links…
Helpless?
With three children raised and fledged, we managed to avoid their seductive pox and the kids are actually grateful for it. All three of them are engaged in creative professions.…
If You Don’t Have A Life . . .
you happen to live in western Michigan, and don’t have any plans for this Saturday, you may be interested in coming to Grand Rapids to hear me give a talk…
Citizenship and Its Discontents
This lecture by Wilson Carey McWilliams was delivered at St. John's College in New Mexico on April 1, 1995. It is heretofore unpublished. While a number of its specific political…
Up with Summer, Down with Empire!
So say the signers (including four Front Porch-sitters) of this letter (www.comehomeamerica.us) from the nascent antiwar group Come Home, America. The permanent warfare state ill serves Americans; shall we give the…
SB 1070 and the Limits of Decentralism
Phoenix, AZ. In the days leading up to this year’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game, which will be held in Phoenix on July 12, there is sure to be a…
Teaching Detachment
In this 2000 lecture, Wilson Carey McWilliams prophetically pointed to the deepening of existing trends in higher education toward detachment and mobility. He described his task in this lecture thusly…
Marriage Ends in New York, An Ancient Struggle Continues
Devon, PA. As my latest pair of essays on FPR scrolled across the screen, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was keeping the family legacy alive of undermining the obligations of…
FPR Conference on Sept. 24: Questions of Scale
Dear friends of FPR, Please join us at the inaugural Front Porch Republic conference on Saturday, September 24, at Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Co-sponsored by the Mount…
Social Justice, Rightly Understood
One of the most unexamined terms in regular use among left Catholics today is "social justice." Vague and often closely aligned with support for national government social programs, "social justice"…
Biovillages
This article describes the effort of local villages in Germany to provide their own heat through local renewable resources. And, wonderfully, it stresses that the effort combines the twin achievements…
Reconquista and the Gospel
Those who believe themselves above primitive nativist loyalty should take care, lest they be discovered worse than infidels for falling short of it.
Measuring the World Whole
Devon, PA. Mark A. Signorelli's superb essay, "Poetry and the Common Language," appeared on FPR last month, and made to my mind a fine addition to helping us contemplate the…
George Orwell and Ideology
The following essay is by Wilson Carey McWilliams, and is drawn from one of the two new collections of his writings, The Democratic Soul. More information about McWilliams, his thought,…
Everyone Needs a Little Localism (or Leroy) in Their Lives
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS (This is, in many ways, connected to yesterday's post on Shannon Hayes's Radical Homemakers, but it also stands very much on its own.)…
Polyamorous manners
Miss Manners has weighed in on proper etiquette as regards persons in "polyamorous relationships." I am fascinated here by at least three things: 1) the reference to the polyamorous community;…
The Death of the Family
Devon, PA. In my previous essay, a sort of preface, I mentioned a two-part essay I published in the wake of the 2008 presidential election, called "Sarah Palin, Spectacular Politics, and the…
Arguments about the Meaning of Family
Devon, PA. Scott Yenor, Associate Professor of Political Science at Boise State University, has provided two dispassionate and informative articles on the historical function of the family and the means…
Sitting Inside a Mountain
Breaking free from the voices, soundtrack, machinery, and plastic of consumption and advertising gives an individual the opportunity to consider questions and ideas that the world outside St. Raymond’s continually…
Community, Storytelling, and Remembering
And I'm certain my bovine stare was a dead giveaway that I found it troubling to imagine him wearing anything but a felt fedora while riding a horse named Hobby.
We Should Be Together…
If you be in or around Washingtron on Sunday, June 19, join Dan McCarthy, Ralph Nader, Kelley Vlahos, Kevin Zeese, and Marc Steiner to discuss how patriots of left, right,…
Access to the Internet is a Human Right
Dumbing down of the concept of rights is not simply incoherent. It is pernicious.