Culture, High & Low 728
Place and Space: An Excerpt from The Space Between
Place and Space Place, in contrast to space, is a context-specific, meaning-rich concept. Although many use the two words interchangeably, a fairly clean distinction can be made between them. Space…
The Culture of Hospitality
Hidden Springs, VA. In two recent pieces, I argued that 1) the language of “culture war” is not helpful and should be discarded, and 2) that to the extent that…
“There Was Also Much Singing”: A Review of The Hound of Distributism
In his estimable history of distributism and its major figures, Jobs of Our Own, Australian economist and former MP Race Matthews records an account of the distinctive atmosphere of the…
Legitimized Rapes
Claremont, CA. In Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, the hero Howard Roark violently rapes a woman named Dominique, forcing her into submission “like a master taking shameful, contemptuous possession” of a…
Liberal Culture?
The word “culture” readily falls from our lips, but what appears on first glance to be a clear-cut notion becomes much more complex as soon as we attempt to define…
America, One Minor League Ballpark at a Time
Being a report on a journey whereupon I dragged my wife to see seven minor league baseball games in seven days, as well as the National Baseball Hall of Fame,…
Big Society: Can the Britons “Build That”?
The place is Great Britain; the year is 2011. Years of economic downturn have brought the unsustainability of government-funded social services to a crisis point. Prime Minister David Cameron re-launches…
Culture War No More
In recent decades we have heard much of the so-called “culture wars.” For many, the idiom of war has come to dominate their thinking in all things cultural and this,…
Sheep in the Parlor
These are good days for those residing in old homes with wide front porches and easy access to quaint Main Street shopping. After all, trends in urban design seem to…
Romney Photo
I received my official photo of Mitt Romney in the mail today. It came from the Republican National Committee. It shows Governor Romney standing before an unpainted barn, an American…
Caped Crusaders and the Flight From Society
The American appetite for cinematic adaptations of children’s stories about grown men who dress as rodents to save the world from grown men dressed as reptiles is bottomless. The Avengers is already…
Gays Acting Badly in the White House: A Comparative Study
Recently I read Up From Slavery, the autobiography of Booker T. Washington. It is an inspiring story of hard work, perseverance, and clear vision. Washington fought an up hill battle…
The Unmaking and Making of Community
The following is a talk given at the annual conference of The Academy of Philosophy and Letters on June 16, 2012 in Baltimore, MD. In her book The Need for…
A Footloose Spring Day
On a gorgeous April Wednesday I am filling in as substitute homeschool teacher. We do arithmetic; we do a language lesson about adverbs and Emily Dickinson. Then—did I mention the…
The Flaw in Jefferson’s Idea of Ward Republics
Thomas Jefferson’s agrarianism has long been vulnerable to attack by unsympathetic critics. Given that Jefferson ultimately banks on virtue rather than folly, this is of course to be expected; but…
You Have Thought Up the Wrong World
In the spring of 1994 my grandmother chose to go off dialysis. Four days later, she was dead. I still remember my parents waking me up in the middle of…
Why We Consent to the Wholesale Destruction of Good Land
Harrison County, Ohio. After I first moved to Harrison County, my smaller children used to beg that we drive home after excursions via a little-used road that passes through a…
The Mishawaka Cruisers
They make their measured circuit along three blocks of neon fast-food chains, the darkened panes of auto dealerships, the Checks-Cashed, and the boarded Dollar Store.
The Hunger Games: Kids Killing Kids
Spring grades are in, so it’s time for a bit of fiction. And since I’ve been hearing plenty of buzz about The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (now a major…
Thoughts towards a New Religious Right
Given my background, beliefs, and practices, I should be an enthusiastic supporter of the religious right—but I can’t do it. I’m religious. I’m conservative. I conclude with the religious right…
Misanthropy or Hymenopteraphilia? E.O. Wilson is Ant(i)-Gracehoper
Devon, PA. DePaul University in Chicago has many distinguished qualities. Most striking among them would seem to be that it is nominally a Catholic university, and yet not only are most…
American Enthusiasts At The Gates: A Review of D.G. Hart’s From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin
D. G. Hart, From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: Evangelicals and the Betrayal of American Conservatism (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2011). ISB: 978-0-8028-6628-8. 252 Pages. Cost:…