The Stump
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 then-prevailing assumptions…
More Articles in The Stump
Whither Brexit?
Debates over the fate of the nation-state are largely driven by the fundamental problem of how we respond to guilt in a post-Christian age. Our politics will thus reflect the growing division…
What Tocqueville Couldn’t See
Faith and reason aren’t opposed any more than freedom (the rallying cry of Patriots) and distributive justice (the rallying cry of social justice warriors) are opposed!
Are Americans Better Off?
Let’s just say you’d better have great discipline and a very rich interior life if you expect to be happy amid great affluence. If this is true of individuals, that money doesn’t…
Cyber-Sophistry, or How ChatGPT Unmasks the Emptiness of AI
AI is the culmination of an ideological fantasy of elite control, woven into the very infrastructure of commonplace media technologies. When it gets used to talking to us, we may get used…
A Sabbath Reflection on Artificial Intelligence & the Human Body
Will we distance ourselves from machines that, like carnival attractions, buzz and ping and light up with those grand prizes of ease and efficiency so that we might remember Christ’s body by…
The War Machine is Not Ergonomic
We have wrought a strange and fantastically complicated world for ourselves. But we can know how well we are interfacing with it by its fruits: a terrifyingly effective machinery, but spasms of…
Fatherhood: The Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love
Fertility rates are low. After going through the pregnancy of our first child, I’m surprised they aren’t lower. Many young people lack the “why” to endure the cultural pessimism around childrearing.
Amish Imagination
The truth is, the Amish have had to adapt and innovate and negotiate the changing world. The truth is, the Amish are a people of imagination. Perhaps not “imagination” as popularly conceived…
Postcards from the Edge: the State of Education in the State of Florida
We do not need crusades for or against “wokeness”—we need people to read actual legislation and weigh in on it. We do not need centralized authorities to make sweeping, political decisions about…
How to Make and Lose Friends (& Influence a Few People): Learning from Carry Nation and Dale Carnegie
I guess that paradox is what intrigues me about Carry and Dale’s differing personal constitutions and methodologies. I see them appealing to all of us in different ways—whether we have many friends…
Wayne Coyne and the Creative Benefits of Fry Cooking
By contrast, developing skill through direct contact with nature increases our confidence, efficacy, and even patience. Although fry cooks have a shorter learning curve than motorcycle mechanics or hockey players, all three…
Call the Midwife: Twenty-First Century Edition
Having experienced pregnancy and childbirth with both a traditionally trained OB/GYN and with midwives, the philosophical differences are abundantly clear.
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