The Water Dipper 328
Science, Police, and Pigs
“The Intellectual Vocation.” Josh Hochschild reviews three recent books—by Scott Newstok, Zena Hitz, and Alan Jacobs—on liberal education: All three books, by testifying to fruitful intellectual life, remind us we…
Bartering, Caregiving, and a Failed State
“The Great Stagnation—or Decline and Fall?” Patrick Deneen reviews Ross Douthat’s latest book with the help of Henry Adams and suggests our society is not merely decadent and stagnant—it is…
COVID-19 Literature, American Conservatism, and Algorithmic Stories
A good rule of thumb is that literature about current events is terrible. I have, however, come across two recent exceptions to this general rule. The first is James Matthew…
Porches, Oedipus Rex, and Essential Workers
“Wendell Berry.” Silas House recounts a day he spent with the Berrys last summer: “It seems to me that joy, sorrow, and affection are the three things always present in…
Liberal Arts, Chaos Gardens, and Ralph Meatyard
“Christians Need the Liberal Arts Now More Than Ever.” John Fea argues that the value of a liberal arts education has been made particularly apparent by the coronavirus: A nurse…
Elegy and Plenitude, Decline and Hope
We’ve been getting reports that the new issue of Local Culture is finally arriving in mailboxes. If your copy hasn’t yet come, there’s now a light at the end of the dark…
Decadence, Hope, and Eavan Boland
“Sources for Rebuilding.” Anthony Barr reviews Yuval Levin’s A Time to Build and puts it in conversation with a variety of other voices that also celebrate those quotidian but essential virtues of…
Tinned Fruit, Globalization Gravy Train, and Sigrid Undset
“Regeneration.” Plough Quarterly is publishing a special digital issue over the next several weeks with responses from a very promising lineup of authors. One excellent place to start is with Bill McKibben’s contribution.…
Local Culture Update, Bookshop, and Dvořák in Iowa
A quick update for subscribers to Local Culture: the printing was delayed a bit by COVID-19-related causes. However, our printer was deemed “essential,” (I’m sure because of their efforts in…
Dorothy Day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Jimmy Dorrell
“Dorothy Day’s Radical Faith.” Casey Cep takes the recent discussions regarding Dorothy Day’s potential sainthood as an occasion to consider her rich and bracing legacy. Keep an eye out for…
Food Sovereignty, Ed McClanahan, and Quarantine Notebook
“Beyond Originalism.” Adrian Vermeule is causing a stir with his conservative critique of originalism in the Atlantic. In its place, he advocates ”common-good constitutionalism.” I’m not sure the courts are the…
Local Food Systems, Good Stories, and Grassland 2.0
Many of the essays being published right now respond to the coronavirus, and while I’ll link to a few of these below, they all suffer from our fundamental ignorance of…
Wendell Berry’s Distractions, Productive Households, and Factory Farming
“Wendell Berry: The Poet of Place.” Silas House corresponds with Berry about the work of faithful dwelling and writing: I think my work also has benefited from distractions. There are…
Limits, Fantasy, and Pandemics
“To Live and Love with a Dying World.” This conversation between Tim DeChristopher and Wendell Berry is quite good. Berry is a wily old fox, repeatedly refusing to be baited…
Good Work, CAFOs, and Pseudo Events
“Working Together.” Gracy Olmstead’s March newsletter relates the myriad benefits of working—and feasting—alongside friends. “Uyghurs for Sale.” Vicky Xiuzhong Xu, Danielle Cave, James Leibold, Kelsey Munro, and Nathan Ruser report…
Mobile Butchers, An Oily Bible, and Phytomining
“Eastern Kentucky Has Been Underwater, but You Probably Didn’t Notice.” Silas House writes about the flooding in Kentucky and the lack of attention it’s receiving: “When trouble comes to rural…
Proximity, Beauty, and the Craft of Farming
“The Distance from Our Food.” Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft makes a nuanced case for moving eating withing a circle of moral regard. In other words, eating animals and plants we know…
Public Health, Decadence, and Replacing the Elite
“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Colosseum.” James Matthew Wilson writes about the hope-giving state of American Catholic letters. “Warning: Chinese Authoritarianism is Hazardous to Your Health.”…
Groundhog Day, Apps, and Foie Gras
“America Needs a Miracle.” The first section of Andrew Sullivan’s musings, where he reflects on Ezra Klein’s Why We’re Polarized and Christopher Caldwell’s The Age of Entitlement, is balanced, nuanced, and quite insightful.…
Rivers, Bill Gates, and Hating Literature
“Rewilding Food, Rewilding Farming.” Vandana Shiva argues that we need to improve farming, not get rid of it: “The notion that high-tech ‘farm free’ lab food will save the planet…
Facial Recognition, Urban Dreams, and Rhetoric
“The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It.” Kashmir Hill details the workings of a new facial recognition app for the New York Times. What could go wrong?…
Elites, Content Collapse, and Amish Outhouses
“Saving Democracy From the Managerial Elite.” Michael Lind has a new book coming out about the new class war (look for FPR’s review on Monday). The Wall Street Journal published an excerpt:…
Old Tractors, Social Media, and Idolatry
“Once it Comes Time.” Michael Adno narrates the life and work of the photographer William Christenberry: “The thread of memory applied to all his work in sculpture, painting, and photography.…
Nationalism, Ebooks, and Gertrude Himmelfarb
“Rich Lowry’s Nationalist Review.” Patrick Deneen extends the argument he made last summer at the National Conservatism Conference in a review essay of Lowry’s The Case for Nationalism: How It Made Us Powerful,…