Articles 356
Marginalia
I was a bit surprised that Matt directed his critique at Twitter rather than at other forms of social media. At least Twitter isn’t as corrupt as Facebook and its…
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…
In Praise of Boredom
G. K. Chesterton reproached the modern experience of boredom. In Heretics, he declares: There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist…
Alone Together on the Internet
The happy traveler is apt to become even happier as he crosses a state line into Vermont or Maine. These two misfits of the continental 48 ban billboards (Hawaii and…
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…
Stop Talking about Wendell Berry on Twitter
Editor's Note: Matt's piece kicks off a mini-symposium on the question of whether localists should use social media, and if so, how. As a Twitter user myself, albeit a somewhat…
Whither Liberalism?
We live, to borrow the title from Daniel T. Rodgers’s excellent 2011 book, in an age of fracture. Whether any time in history has been without fracturing is a point for…
“Anything Less than Ownership is Unacceptable!”
Many Americans do not need a data visualization to see that their places, especially their cities, are sharply divided along racial lines. Even so, the Weldon Cooper Center’s “Racial Dot…
J. Drew Lanham’s Clear-Eyed Vision of the Land
“I think of land and hope that others are thinking about it, too.” Those of us who try to think about land have much to learn from J. Drew Lanham’s…
At Last, the FPR Manifesto
... where human affairs are conducted as if place really matters, where economic affairs are conceived as if limits really matter, and where political power is exercised as if liberty…
“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…
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…
Learning How to Think with Alan Jacobs
Last fall Alan Jacobs published a slim book with a bold title: How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds. Jacobs is a professor of English literature,…
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…
Telling the Stories Right
Though he may be better known as an essayist or poet, Berry calls himself a storyteller, and the best introduction to his agrarian vision is his fiction.
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…
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.…
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…
