The Water Dipper
MacIntyre, Classical Music, and Diapers
“Remembering Alasdair MacIntyre (1929-2025).” Christopher Kaczor remembers the life and legacy of his teacher: “I have never met, nor do I ever expect to meet, a philosopher as fascinating as the author…
More Articles in The Water Dipper
Contaminated Farms, Individualism, and Art
“Twelve Months to Fall Back in Love with America.” Anarchist, hobo, Coast Guardsman, Catholic, Front Porch Republic conference-goer, and now newlywed A.M. Hickman is traveling America with his wife Keturah and looking…
Volunteering, Urban Farms, and Grocery Stores
We’ve now posted the FPR conference schedule. Based on feedback from recent conferences, we've built a bit more elbow room into the schedule to allow for more mingling and discussion. It’s shaping…
Contrary U, New Verse Review, and Vinyl Records
“Captive Users.” Alexander Stern pens a thoughtful review essay that puts Cory Doctorow’s The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation in conversation with Antón Barba-Kay’s A Web of Our…
Nisbet, Fact-Checking, and Leopold
“Robert Nisbet for the Present Age.” Kirstin Birkhaug describes the experience of teaching Robert Nisbet’s The Present Age and watching her students respond to his analysis of America’s twinned statism and individualism:…
Wendell Berry, the Pioneer Fire, and Idols
“‘Your Friend, Wendell’: A 90th Birthday Tribute to Wendell Berry.” To mark Wendell Berry’s 90th birthday, The Library of America published a set of reflections by several of the people he’s influenced…
Motherhood, Rural Decline, and Phoenix
I’ll be logging off the internet for a few weeks and thus pausing these Water Dippers. I aim to resume them in early August. In the meantime, make plans to join us…
Maurin, Partisanship, and Myth
"Ideas and Historical Consequences." Mars Hill Audio released the full version of an old interview with John Lukacs. FPR readers can up for a free FPR affiliate membership at Mars Hill Audio.…
Math, Antitrust, and Work
“Computers Can’t Do Math.” David Schaengold has a clear and provocative essay on the differences between computer “thinking” and human thinking: “we can be sure there are world states beyond the comprehension…
COVID, ChatGPT, and PFAS
“The Cultural Roots of Our Demographic Ennui.” Patrick Brown argues that affluence—what regular FPR contributor John de Graaf labeled “affluenza”—lies behind many of our cultural ills: “A world of creature comforts is…
Lobsters, Resilience, and Scouting
“DIY.” Bud Smith details the joys of fixing anything that’s broken with the help of the Internet: “YouTube has all the right answers and all the wrong answers. All you have to…
Patriotism, Realtors, and Men
“The Big AI Risk Not Enough People Are Seeing.” Tyler Austin Harper draws on Ivan Illich to distinguish between technologies that empower us and those that erode our human nature: “we need…
Reading, Undset, and Tariffs
“Hope for the Organization Kid.” Joshua Hochschild revisits David Brooks’ classic 2004 essay on college students and considers what’s changed in the two decades since: “I doubt that the keenest college students…
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