The Editors
Articles by The Editors
Donald Hall and the Unsettling of American Letters
When Donald Hall passed away last week the obituary in his local New Hampshire newspaper made clear what an exceptional and instructive life he had lived, one stirring in its…
Review of Suicide of the West
Jonah Goldberg’s Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy, appearing on Amazon and New York Times bestseller lists, represents…
“Go Talk with Those Who are Rumored to be Unlike You”
On October 2, 2009, the International Olympic Committee met in Denmark to vote on which city would host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Despite President Obama traveling to Copenhagen to lobby…
Liberalism: A Joke, Literally
It’s a bit rich to pile on a “free-thinker” like Kanye West, who implores us to “lead with love,” when the best critics and pundits are themselves bankrupt of compelling…
Social Justice vs. Social Charity
The Pernicious Nature of Charity There is a pernicious force that operates in all societies, but especially in ours and especially in these sad days. It is a force that…
Naftzger Park, Planning, and the Problem of “Growth”
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Naftzger Memorial Park was a small, pleasantly run-down city block of trees, grass, and benches, near the center of downtown Wichita, KS, just a block…
Sparking Little Platoons
When I became a Washington, D.C. newsroom intern, Twitter usage was mandatory (primarily so that we could help run the magazine’s Twitter account). I neither understood nor liked Twitter at…
What Tolkien Can Teach Us About Twitter
In December of 2016, I observed, alluding to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, that Twitter was akin to Trump’s ring of power. My point then was relatively straightforward: just as…
Big Other is Watching. Hallelu!
All hail Big Other, in whom we live and move and have our being. All hail Big Other, from whom so many blessings flow. All hail Big Other, than which…
The Irony of Twitter
Several years ago I followed an exchange on Twitter between two academics. Both were lamenting the (in their view) low quality work done by young writers as well as the…
“Torches of Freedom”: The Anti-Literature of Advertising
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute…
The Reinvention of (a More Localized) America
New in The Atlantic is a long--probably a little too long, but stick with the whole thing; it's worth it--article by journalist James Fallows, "The Reinvention of America." The article…
Broody Hens and the Sustainable Farmstead
My farmstead poultry flock is sustained by a handful of broody hens—female fowl who have somehow retained their ancient instinct to nest and hatch offspring. Broody hens respond to their…
The Triumph of the Datum
The middle of the twentieth century abounded with writers who simultaneously analyzed their own times and predicted ours: Daniel Bell (The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society), Christopher Lasch (The Culture…
What is Truth?
A year ago, as President Trump launched yet another salvo of tweets whose express purpose was to correct allegedly "false news" with a new variety of confirmedly false news, Time…
The Theological Need for Mediation: Considerations from Alexis de Tocqueville
During a class I was teaching at our parish last fall, a woman pulled me aside afterwards to ask a question. The woman was visibly upset, with tears running down…
In Praise of the Children’s Choir Accompanist
Every few weeks, in what I assume is a uniquely Protestant ritual, a dozen small children stand at the front of our church and sing for the congregation. A kindly…
Why Anti-Liberalism Fails
The Failures of Liberalism The intellectual critique of liberalism is coextensive with liberalism itself, going back at least as far as Giambattista Vico’s dispute with Descartes. The term “liberalism” itself…
What Wendell Berry’s Brush Teaches Us About Capitalism, Community, and “Inevitability”
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] The Art of Loading Brush: New Agrarian Writings, the latest collection of writings by Wendell Berry, isn't a perfect book, nor the perfect expression of…
From 1948, to 1968, to 2018 (and Beyond?)
A long, thoughtful, well-researched, and theoretically serious piece of historical reflection has just appeared in The Atlantic, one which examines the fate of liberalism in post-WWII America--though not so much…
A Tale of Two Tragedies
This past week, the Baton Rouge district attorney announced he would not press charges against the two police officers who shot and killed Alton Sterling when attempting to arrest him.…
An Invitation to Caleb’s Porch
Those of us who have been around Front Porch republican for a while will remember the trenchant, funny and (in my opinion) only occasionally incorrect musings of Caleb Stegall, Esquire.…
Education and the Quest for Association
Plato remarked in the Republic that if one wanted to know the health of a city, we could simply look at the souls of its citizens. In conjunction with Aristotle,…
College and its End(s)
“College and its End(s)”---that was the title I had given to the section of senior seminar I taught this past fall. The class was conceived with two animating questions in…
