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Russell Arben Fox

Russell Arben Fox is a Front Porch Republic Contributing Editor. He grew up milking cows and baling hay in Spokane Valley, WA, but now lives in Wichita, KS, where he runs the History & Politics and the Honors programs at Friends University, a small Christian liberal arts college. He aspires to write a book about the theory and practice of democracy, community, and environmental sustainability in small to mid-sized cities, like the one he has made his and his family’s home; his scribblings pertaining to that and related subjects are collected at the Substack “Wichita and the Mittelpolitan.” He also blogs–irregularly and usually at too-great a length–more broadly about politics, philosophy, religion, socialism, bicycling, books, farming, pop music, and whatever else strikes his fancy, at “In Medias Res.”

Articles by Russell Arben Fox

Alasdair MacIntyre (1929-2025)

I don’t see how any English-speaking student of politics or philosophy from the past half-century could have avoided being shaped by After Virtue, his short and explosive argument against the…

Minding Laurie Johnson’s Gap

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] President Trump has been in office a month as of today, and the maelstrom of orders and actions which he has taken has elicited delight,…

Thoughts on Dallmayr and a Different Post-Liberalism

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Donald Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as his vice presidential running mate has put “postliberalism” back in the news, assuming it had ever left. Vance’s…

The Excellence (and Implications) of Escaping the Housing Trap

All of this only touches the surface of Escaping the Housing Trap’s arguments and only begins the many productive discussions that should—and hopefully will!—follow in its wake. Buy and read…

Thinking About Wendell Berry’s Leftist Lament (and More)

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wendell Berry’s sprawling, uneven, brilliant, and sometimes frustrating The Need to Be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice will likely not, I think, be…

Putting the Demos on a Pedestal

Why Liberalism Failed was a good book, but Regime Change is a better one, and I think will be recognized as such—as well as one that will gain notoriety in…

On Latimer, Localism, Liberalism, and Democracy

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS. Trevor Latimer’s Small Isn’t Beautiful: The Case Against Localism deeply engaged me, but not in a positive way, at least not initially. As…

Alan Jacobs on Ursula Le Guin and Anarchism

Alan Jacobs is not, to my knowledge, a Porcher, though he ought to be; his insightful reflections upon Christianity, literature, society, and the state are hugely relevant to all sorts…
November 15, 2022

Planning and The Politics of Beauty: Reflections on Stewart Udall

If you’ve ever visited Canyonlands National Park, or hiked the Appalachian Trail, or spent time at over a hundred other similar locations across America’s beautiful and diverse ecosystems and geography,…
November 11, 2022

Back to the Bottom-Line (Apocalyptically and Practically Speaking) at the Land Institute

Wendell Berry has written endlessly about the goodness of local work; if, for Berry, the goodness of such work is connected to agrarian virtue, while for Jackson it is connected…
October 25, 2022

Diversity, Race, and Radical Hospitality in a Bible-based Community

We academics unfortunately often fall into the trap of pride (particularly of the self-involved, self-satisfying, institutional kind), and hence a humbling such as this conference delivered was probably much needed.…

Localism, Intentionality, and Utopia (Socialist or Otherwise)

If you're looking intentionally at your locality, wanting to make it more just and more civil and more communal--with, say, better food practices, more responsible energy usage, and social arrangements…