Articles Archive
A Dictionary of Dumb Ideas: Tradition vs. Convention
We should aim to conserve what is deepest and true, not just what happens to have immediately preceded the present. It should be the conservative’s task to reconnect the manner…
Slime, Memorization, and Forests
“Creatures That Don’t Conform.” You don’t have to agree with Lucy Jones’s politics or philosophy to share her amazement at slime mold (and don’t miss Barry Webb’s photographs): “They can…
After the Second Cheer: A Review of Two Cheers for Politics
Purdy has a palpable affection for what he calls “the preservative work of being together.” Beginning again from that affection might allow Purdy and his readers to find a fuller…
The Power of Place: Wildsam Field Guides
The success of Wildsam is a reminder that many people want to experience the real. Every day we are marketed generic and homogenous products and destinations, but there is an…
Dana Gioia’s Bright Twilight
Out on the wrinkled sea, the high notes come shimmering over the cold waves, and 72-year-old Dana Gioia says, “Meet me at the Lighthouse.”
What I Learned in Grad School
Temperamentally and vocationally, I was in the wrong place. Yet I don’t regret a single day I spent there—not only because I met my wife, but because I learned to…
Livestreams, Motherhood, and Education
“Watch the Great Fall.” Paul Kingsnorth acknowledges his own tendencies toward nostalgia and draws on some fine poets to articulate the proper posture toward decline: “The theologies of Zen, Orthodoxy,…
Kevin Gutzman on The Jeffersonians
Kevin Gutzman is Professor of History at Western Connecticut State University. He has published half a dozen books on Jefferson, Madison, and the Constitution. His latest book is The Jeffersonians.…
Awkward Family Dinner: A Review of Reforming Classical Education
Any reformation requires a standard. How else could you measure progress? The standard of reviving classical learning should plainly include those revered authors who inspired and contributed to that tradition.
After Virtual: Civic Life
The After Virtual conference podcast series closes with a focus on civics and cemeteries. Mark Mitchell, author of Plutocratic Socialism, talks on, well, plutocrats and socialism (plus the importance of…
How to Make and Lose Friends (& Influence a Few People): Learning from Carry Nation and Dale Carnegie
I guess that paradox is what intrigues me about Carry and Dale’s differing personal constitutions and methodologies. I see them appealing to all of us in different ways—whether we have…
A Man From Nowhere
I am not now lamenting my station, which is a kind of existential loneliness, though at times I do. I’m putting it down in writing because I know for certain…
Restoring the Shire: A Review of The Wonders of Creation
How else does their work inspire you to think differently about your own relationship to your own places? Take action in your own property, if you have it, and in…
Gratitude, Competence, and Libraries
“Ronald Blythe Obituary.” Patrick Barkham remembers a great localist writer: “Never out of print and read and studied around the world, Akenfield made Blythe famous and perhaps overshadowed the many…
Wayne Coyne and the Creative Benefits of Fry Cooking
By contrast, developing skill through direct contact with nature increases our confidence, efficacy, and even patience. Although fry cooks have a shorter learning curve than motorcycle mechanics or hockey players,…
Call the Midwife: Twenty-First Century Edition
Having experienced pregnancy and childbirth with both a traditionally trained OB/GYN and with midwives, the philosophical differences are abundantly clear.
In Schooling as in Life, More Than Enough is Too Much
Being a teacher is a demanding job, whether in a college, school, or home setting. It requires tremendous energy, responsiveness, and mental flexibility. It requires that you, the teacher, also…
Centering Humanity in the Age of the Chatbot
Though the metaphor sounds alarmist, an unimaginable tsunami is barreling down on a complacent world. We may have time to adjust, who knows?
Heating with Wood as a Habit of Mind
I enjoy certain utilitarian advantages by heating with wood, but I also prefer the habits of mind—attention, connection, succession, frugality—that my woodpile’s growth and contraction inspires.
Raj Bhakta & (Very) Old Armagnac
My guest is Raj Bhakta. Raj is a true practitioner of the art of cultural debris. From founding one of the first premium whiskey brands, Whistle Pig—based out of Vermont,…
The Poor You Have Always With You
Accompanying the poor or inhabiting their number, the honest among us recognize our own fundamental impoverishment. Bernanos, a father and husband who long depended on others for sustenance, inhabited the…
Phantom Menace: America’s Enduring Fixation with Fascism
The reader may be none the wiser regarding the definition of fascism, but this book affords a wisdom and moderation of sorts all the same, one that stems from the…
Virtue Signaling and Cheap Grace
Changing the phrase “field work” to “practicum” is, without more comprehensive action, a perfect illustration of cheap grace. It costs USC nothing more than some online eye-rolling to do.
Après Nous, Le Déluge
What keeps me on one side rather than the other is my belief that if we had been living more fully in that real world, a lot of what we…
