Articles 355
Group Decisionmaking and Individual Responsibility
Part of the pushback against the notion that groups can make decisions comes from the fear that we already use groups to absolve ourselves of individual responsibility. James Buchanan made…
From the Multiversity Cave: Augustine and Amare
This post is part of a series that will explore what prominent thinkers can teach us about today’s public multiversity, the modern university with its many colleges, departments, and other…
Saving Church for Adults
Grand Rapids, MI Recently, in a posting entitled “A Culture of Millstones,” Katharine Dalton has lamented the too-colorful language her children are exposed to in church – words like whore, prostitute,…
Do Groups Make Choices After All?
Mike Munger was recently on EconTalk, where he is a very regular guest. This time the subject of discussion was his latest book Choosing in Groups. Munger is an excellent…
Booth Tarkington after the Great War, ‘That Disquieted and Questioning Time’
In this excerpt from America Moved: Booth Tarkington’s Memoirs of Time and Place, 1869–1928, Tarkington reflects on the changes he observed in America following the end of the Great War.…
Apocalypticism for Porchers
If it's your thing -- and it's certainly not everybody's thing -- it's not a bad time to be an apocalypticist. A few weeks ago, Pope Francis once again implored…
Building Houses on Sandy Ground
In the summer of 2004, I packed all of my worldly belongings into a small U-Haul trailer and made the trek from Central Texas to the Florida Panhandle. I was…
The Academy Awards as a Religious Experience
The stylish crowd that walked the red carpet to the Oscars likely had not donned their Sunday best earlier in the day for a trip to church. Even so, the…
History as Manifesto
Dillon, MT Having a personal and professional interest in what people think history is for, I read The History Manifesto with great interest. Jo Guldi (Brown) and David Armitage (Harvard)…
On Dying Where You’re Planted: The Rooted Pastor
Manchester, CT I am grudgingly accepting that you don’t choose the place; the place chooses you. I’ve moved around a lot during my time on the planet, first as luggage, then…
Huckabee’s Shifting Shades of Green
As he began making the early “exploratory” rounds, a smiling Mike Huckabee recently reminded Martha Raddatz on ABC’s political Sunday show This Week that in 2008 he had run a…
From the Multiversity Cave: Aristotle and Phronesis
Saginaw, MI This post is part of a series that will explore what prominent thinkers can teach us about today’s public multiversity, the modern university with its many colleges, departments,…
If the U.S. Were a Christian Nation, Would that Make Christianity the Most Violent Religion in the World?
Hillsdale, Michigan. The Paris killings a few weeks ago have unleashed a number of reflections about Islam and its tendency toward violence. Robert Tracinski makes a point that I have…
Higher Education And Civic Engagement
Amid the current discussions of rapidly increasing student loan debt, the unaffordability of higher education, and the gap between our college graduates and the skills necessary for the jobs available,…
The Family Tree, Stripped
A mainland Chinese student visited my office last week, asking for a letter of recommendation for his transfer to another university. It is hard to lose a student like this—enthusiastic…
Illiberal Catholicism One Year On
Just over a year ago John Zmirak caused a stir with his Aleteia article “Illiberal Catholicism.” In it, Zmirak excoriated a fairly broad range of Catholic academics and commentators for, among other…
Orwell and Huxley, Together Again: ‘The Interview’ and our Culture of Distraction
By now you’ve already forgotten last month’s most important celebrity cause, namely the embodiment of freedom of expression known as The Interview. Hollywood has too, of course. It's so 2014.…
Christmas Comes But Once a Year; Or, Books to Buy Next Christmas
Philadelphia, PA R. J. Snell A slow thinker and slower writer—some might say the reverse—I’ve been chewing over the Christmas season for the past few days, a remembrance of things…
Bar Jester’s Writing Seminar II; or, How to Write Like a Philosopher
If you want to write worse than the average undergraduate male, consider philosophy.
Local Wonderings in Wichita
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS, is the home to a wonderful bookstore, Eighth Day Books. (Which isn't my favorite bookstore in Wichita, but that's partly because my wife…
Praying in the Streets: Ritual as an Urban Design Problem
"[T]he city as World icon is being destroyed, not by being secularized (it was always secular at base with some sacral potencies shooting through it from every angle) but by…
Beyond Josh Lyman Politics: How the West Wing Miseducated My Political Generation
A few years ago, Josh Lyman spoke at Harvard to a packed room of starstruck student politicos. It wasn’t the real Josh Lyman, of course, because he isn’t real: he…