Articles 355
Tocqueville’s Diagnosis
RINGOES, NJ As brilliant minds, armed with apparently endless supplies of money, thrash about Washington desperately attempting to fix what they have broken, it might be useful to step back…
Another Irrelevant Conversion
Many folks--including Rod and the guys at Plumb Lines, just to cite two from our own blogroll--have taken notice of Newt Gingrich's impending conversion to Catholicism. For several months, I've…
Oiko-Systems
Alexandria, VA. For many years now, "environmentalists" have sought to thwart the extension of forms of commerce and economic development that prove destructive of "eco-systems" or threaten the delicate balance…
Crunchy Pope, Part 1: Body, Earth and Cosmos
Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. Pope Benedict has recently gained a bit of credit with world media for emphasizing the urgency of addressing the environmental devastation we have wrought. This (combined with…
The Populist Farmer, Revisited
Via John Schwenkler, I see that Norman Borlaug has just celebrated his 95th birthday. Borlaug, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, is one of the primary architects of modern…
Reasoning about Stories
Devon, PA. Here is something for you that no one will dispute: all complaints about modernity, including those that fit under the rubric of "conservative," are arguments about stories. …
Against Monoculture
In plant or animal life, a single virus or bacteria, a single destructive fungus or disease, a single hostile predator or pest would wipe out an entire monoculture without the…
You Say Liturgy, I Say Lechery
I hurried up to Columbia University to inform my friends on the campus that I had located the Communist Party, had made contact with it, and was, in fact, a registered…
The Rediscovery of Agriculture?
RINGOES, NJ. Recently, a friend and I visited Polyface Farm outside Staunton, Virginia. Polyface is owned and operated by Joel Salatin, whose parents started farming these verdant five-hundred acres in…
Wilhelm Röpke’s Swiss Front Porch
One of the few "Austrian economists" to give serious attention to familial, agrarian, and communitarian themes was Wilhelm Röpke , born in Germany yet long associated with his adopted Switzerland.…
From Confucians to Consumers?
In case you missed the story on NPR, the Chinese government has come up with its own stimulus package to make up for dwindling US purchasing. As Marx laughs in…
Ken Myers on Our Culture of One
Ken Myers, editor of the brilliant Mars Hill Audio Journal (on whose board I serve, I should add), essentially offers something of an implicit critique of phenomena like FPR, not…
Men, Boys, and Guns
This past weekend, I was pulled away from the computer, from a sprinkler system that needs to be fixed, from a garden wall that needs to be built, from…
Localism vs. Globalism
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Mark Thompson has penned a challenging broadside against skeptics of free trade, including me, and he makes a number of arguments that deserve to be answered. There does…
The Surveillance State and Me
PHOENIX, ARIZONA. Three hundred sixty bucks. Two tickets. Over the course of one month. Handed to me not be an overzealous rookie or a peace officer with a quota to…
Regionalism in the NY Times
While the pickings are generally slim, the NYTimes can sometimes reveal a glimmer of localism, at least in the only section worth reading, the "City" section on Sundays. A few…
Deadly Vices
Alexandria, VA. In a recent column, E.J. Dionne precedes his praise for a new economic populism - anger of the populace directed at economic elites - with a somewhat gratuitous,…
Where is Our Perpetual Peace?
Devon, PA. At the root of American and, indeed, western public life rests a fundamental assumption: the specific is dangerous, the particular a menace, the exclusive "unfair." Local government is…
Beer and Civic Life
Claremont, CA. The news is dreadful: According to the Census, since 2006 we have been living in a republic where, for the first time in the history of the republic,…
Farm Stories: Hog Killing
Let this day begin again the change of hogs into people, not the other way around, for today we celebrate again our lives' wedding with the world -- Wendell Berry,…
A Partially Localist Defense of Public Schooling
Wichita, KS President Obama's speech last week on the various hopes and goals his administration has in mind as they address the issue of public education in America gave rise…
Friends Abroad: Vandana Shiva
LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY. One of the structural evils of our two-party system and our editorial pages is the inherent bias of both towards two. If not A, then B. If not…
The (“Post-“) Modern Cave: An Allegory of the University
Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. Imagine human beings brought up from childhood in a cave, bound fast with their heads all facing one direction. On the wall before them they see only…