Philosophers & Saints 186
The Eccentricity of the Saints
Devon, PA. Earlier this week, some devout and worthy reader on the Porch proposed G.K. Chesterton as the patron saint of the Front Porch Republic. Aside from heartily endorsing the…
Benedict on Business: What’s Love Got to Do With It?
Irving, Texas. Since its beginnings with Aristotle and Plato, the study of economics has always been regarded as a branch of philosophy, a colony of politics and ethics. But all…
Buddhist Economics: The Eight-Fold Path
Cold Spring, N.Y. In order to get people thinking rightly about economists, Fritz Schumacher used to tell the story of an architect, a priest, and an economist talking about which…
Cleanup in Pew 16
I have just returned from two weeks in England, were I was more or less out of touch with the internet. The occasion was a conference at the University of…
Lessons from a Motorcycle Mechanic
Wichita, KS [Cross-posted at In Medias Res] Let's pause a moment and be grateful that the job market for political theorists is so bad. Because if it wasn't, Matthew Crawford,…
Recognition and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Matt Crawford is a good friend of mine, and I read and commented on early drafts of Shop Class as Soulcraft, and so I don’t have much in the way…
The Alternative Tradition in America
Alexandria, VA Since Caleb has posted his lecture from a legendary conference a few years ago that a number of future Front Porchers attended in Charlottesville, VA, I've brushed off…
Civilizing the Economy
Pope Benedict XVI's eagerly awaited third encyclical was released today: "Charity in Truth." I'll be reading it over the next few days, but here's a link to a quick synopsis.…
Will Wendell Be Jailed?
Claremont, CA. Wendell Berry, writer and farmer and hero to the people, might move from the farmhouse to the big house. Speaking at one of the USDA's National Identification System…
What’s Modernity Marx Got to Do With It? (FPR vs. PoMoCon, Part Drei)
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS Blogger though I am, I can't deny that there is a major advantage to arguments conducted through the slower media of paper (to…
Aristotle and the Cult of the Immediate
In the current economic and political crisis, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is not likely to be one of the first places that Americans go looking for wisdom. It should be. Throughout…
Robert Nisbet’s Quest
Seattle, WA Robert Nisbet's 1953 book The Quest for Community has rightfully achieved that rare and estimable status of "classic." What Nisbet saw more clearly than most of his contemporaries …
Descartes, Algebra, and Alienation
Democratizing eighth-grade algebra promotes social justice. (Brookings Institution) Money, mechanization, algebra. The three monsters of contemporary civilization. Complete analogy. (Simone Weil) Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. There are a lot of conspiracy…
Is the Devil From Paris?
Irving, Texas. Is the devil from Paris? Many people seem to think so. And if not the devil himself, then at least a particular demon, one whose name is not…
Brave New World Reconsidered: A Tale of Two Gnosticisms
Many who are alarmed at the prospect of the “abolition of man” have found in Huxley’s Brave New World a dark and salutary warning – an imaginative rendering of our…
Hospitality in a World Immune to Grace
Media, PA. Ladies and gentlemen, Ivan Illich is dead. Long may he live. I don’t mean Tolstoy’s famous fictional decedent, Ivan Ilyich, although he is certainly dead, too. No, in…
Communitarianism, Conservatism, Populism and Localism: An Updated Survey
Wichita, KS [Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Michael Sandel's giving of the prestigious Reith Lectures for the BBC (hat tip: the ever-watchful Harry Brighouse at Crooked Timber) has prompted me…
Workaday Morals
Henry County, Ky. Those of us foolish enough to call ourselves “conservative” are forced to admit that culturally and politically at least we live amidst less and less worth conserving. …
Is Burke Our Intellectual Father?
Devon, PA. Last week, Caleb Stegall's reprinting of his article on Community from the Conservative Encyclopedia excited a small objection that the genealogy of conservatism said article offered was untenable…
Community
JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS. "Community" is a recurring word and theme on this stoop, but it's invocation can come in many undesirable forms: as a talisman against perceived ills; as a marketing device appealing…
Science and the Spirit in an Age of Hostile Presumption
Washington, CT. Winter was a hard-nosed professional this season just past. It sunk its icy teeth in long and hard and mocked us with a one day January thaw that…
Why we do not own a Television
April was "Media Awareness Month" at our sons' school. I took a couple weeks off from the Porch, and I also published a first draft of this piece in the…
Modernity, Fecundity, and Being a Competent Geek
Wichita, KS. Not too long ago, I asked my readers at my main blog just what sort of geek I should be. (The answer, in case it wasn't apparent at…
Feed Fish to the Leviathan
Devon, PA. Stanley Fish has taken up a lot of public space during his career, but never has he darkened the depths in such monstrous fashion as he does in…