Place. Limits. Liberty.
Join us for FPR’s 2025 Conference on “Work and Leisure”

Articles Archive

This Is My Son: Two Years Later

Devon, PA.  Two years ago this week, President Obama delivered the commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame.  Great numbers of students, faculty, alumni, and American Catholics protested the…

Never Mind the Umpire; Kill the Sound Effects Guy!

Alan Pell Crawford on trying to find a baseball game amidst the FUNN in Richmond. Things are better in Batavia, though my friend Tom Williams and I annually threaten to…
May 11, 2011

“Southern Conservatism”: The View from Brooklyn

The James Madison Program at Princeton often provides an unexpected breath of common-sensical fresh air in the academic fever-swamps.  Last March it held a conference on the work of the…

Poetry and the Common Language

This piece was originally posted at the University Bookman. Check out their site for other similar articles! --- If there is one principle which is nearly axiomatic among our contemporaries…

Blogs to keep an eye on

At the Davenport Institute for Civic Engagement and Public Leadership at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy, we've launched three blog sites relating to public participation in governance. "Gov…
May 6, 2011

Farmers Ditch Tractors for….Oxen?

A New York Times piece, describes the renewed interest in animal power among some small farmers. Mind you, these are not quaint Pa Ingalls actors demonstrating out-dated farming techniques to…
Mark T. Mitchell
May 5, 2011

Abortion and American Federalism

Devon, PA.  Joe Carter, over at the First Things web page, offers a reflection on Ron Paul's pro-life credentials and how they square -- or rather, in Carter's opinion, how…

Regret Minimization

Jeremy Grantham is paid to make people money. Among his clients is Dick Cheney, who, based on Grantham's advice, was well-positioned before the economic collapse (as I noted at the…
Patrick Deneen
May 4, 2011

Wendell Berry,Wes Jackson, and some Guy named Charles at Georgetown

Late last week I received notice that jolly Prince Charles will be speaking at Georgetown on the future of food, fresh from his oldest son's nuptials. While that news was…
Patrick Deneen
May 3, 2011

The Death of bin Laden: On Violence and Civil Religion

Holland, MI. Around 11:00 Sunday night I received a text from a friend informing me that Osama bin Laden had been killed by US military and intelligence units. I confess…
Jeff Polet
May 2, 2011

City of Dreams

Imagine designing a city for people rather than cars: Curitiba, Brazil

He Deserved It

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS That's a terribly unChristian thing to say, I know. To speak in moral terms--to speak of "desert"--in matters of war is to invariably…

Georgics on My Mind

With avidity and pleasure I’ve been reading American Georgics: Writings on Farming, Culture, and the Land, a collection of excerpts in the American agrarian tradition edited by Edwin C. Hagenstein,…
April 28, 2011

Just in Time for a Royal Wedding

Noble marriages have a certain appeal to even staunch republicans like ourselves. Could it be for something other than celebrity and The Dress?
Katherine Dalton
April 28, 2011

Boredom and the “App” for Self-Control

The future is grim, my friends.
Jason Peters
April 27, 2011

The Moral Implications of Dictionaries

  I suppose we all grow unduly annoyed at times with certain cultural foibles which are really quite trivial in comparison with the dire and momentous crises which are rapidly…

Counselling in Pornland

Devon, PA.  Mark T. Mitchell's powerful essay on Jane Austen in the age of porn coincides with an interesting news item on Inside Higher Ed.  A group called the Young…

Pride and Prejudice and Porn

If we are witnessing the passing of the gentlemen, there is much to lament. Perhaps it’s time for the gentleman to make a comeback.
Mark T. Mitchell
April 24, 2011

Deracinated Meritocrats and the Marriage “Debate”

Devon, PA.  I just received a link to a video that records the encounter of members of the TFP (The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property)…

Personal Mobility Concept

No, not legs. They're so 20th Century. The good people at Honda, responding to the crisis of people having to move their feet or stand on them, have developed a…
Jeff Polet
April 19, 2011

How Bonds Really Did It

With the Barry Bonds’s trial ending with a slap on the wrist for the lesser charge against him and a mistrial on the greater charges, it is time to divulge…
April 19, 2011

The Mosh-Pit of Philosophy, the Pedestal of Science, and a Plate of Green Beans

Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of addressing the ISI Conference at Taylor University, “Whose Capitalism? Which Free Market? Exploring the Moral Dimensions of the Market.” My message to the…

Going Home

The South, repatriated ex-slave Ned Douglass lectured his Louisiana neighbors in Ernest J. Gaines’s novel The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, is “yours because your people’s bones lays in it;…
April 15, 2011

Spring Spheres and the Vernal Equinox Bunny

Our return to a distinctively modern form of paganism is nearly complete - a teacher at a Seattle school approved a "hunt" for round object containing sweets and surprises on…
Patrick Deneen
April 14, 2011