The Stump

Matt's essay concludes our discussion of "Localist Social Media." You can view all the essays in this symposium here.    When I first submitted my attempt...

It’s true that we don’t yet have a colony on Mars. But countless people are living very ordinary lives and doing very ordinary things that are true, good, and beautiful.

True charity draws all people, each one gifted and broken, into an interdependent community.

When asked to share my thoughts on the recent yellow vests protests, I initially demurred, stating that is was simply another case of the...

From a jail cell in Birmingham, Martin Luther King, Jr. charged us to acknowledge our “inescapable network of mutuality.”  Fifty-five years later, our networks...

Unfortunately, much of what is currently driving the discussion is not reason nor compassion but anger.

We are the blind, each calling out that which we are so sure we see. No longer aware that the sight we now marvel at is little more than one conceived and praised in our internal darkness... And what becomes of a world under such stewards like me?

The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his...

The day will come when parents in the poorest communities will be able to say that they cannot imagine a better place to raise their children than in their neighborhoods surrounded by family and friends. This will not happen because government bureaucracies finally use the correct metrics and better redistribute the nation’s wealth.

Shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks, Wendell Berry wrote, “The time will soon come when we will not be able to remember the horrors of September 11 without remembering also the unquestioning technological and economic optimism the ended on that day.” This, I fear, was one of the rare times Mr. Berry missed the mark. Collective amnesia is an American strong suit.