communitarianism 18
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…
Self-Government Starts at the Front Porch
Rugged individualists need not be atomists; and there are compelling reasons why even Enlightenment liberals should be front porch republicans.
Communitarianism, Left and Right
Populism can in fact be seen as being precisely a reassertion of democracy against the anti-democratic tendencies of managerial, technocratic elites.
Institutions Rescue George Bailey
George offers his joyful holiday greetings to these institutions as if they were persons, bodies that saw his town through good and bad, through war and peace.
On Dreher’s Benedict Option, the Christians and Localists Who Can Live It, and the Ones Who Can’t
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Rod Dreher and I aren't close friends, but like many Front Porch Regulars, I've been blessed with the opportunity to associate with and learn from…
Whatever Happened to Communitarianism?
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Twenty years ago, the concept and label "communitarianism" was riding high, or at least as high as any broadly applicable yet intellectually coherent ideological movement…
Hanging Out with, and Learning from, Some Thoroughly Material Benedictines
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] A few weeks ago I was able to, once again, do something that I enjoy doing immensely--take a group of students out on a local…
Libertarianism, Paternalism, and Pot
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] From 2003 to 2005, we lived in Craighead County, Arkansas, while I taught at Arkansas State University. Craighead was a dry county, having voted many…
Pondering St. Francisville, Gilead, and our Stories of Place
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Jeremy Beer's recent review of The Little Way of Ruthie Leming leads me to once again reflect upon Rod Dreher's excellent book (about which I've…
Wes Jackson, Localism, and the Carbon-Based Community
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] A couple of days ago, I had the lucky opportunity to listen up close to Wes Jackson, founder of The Land Institute here in Kansas,…
Why I Hope Westboro Baptist Church, the ACLU, and Dahlia Lithwick Get Their Butts Kicked By the Supreme Court
Free speech is a good thing. Respecting the value of the whole community is a better one.
Defining Red Toryism (Again)
A scholar suggests that Phillip Blond's Red Toryism is just another word for conventional conservatism. He may be right about Blond, but he's definitely not about the idea.
A Note on Right, Left, and Lasch at the Present Time
If Lasch couldn't express a way for leftists and localists to speak the same language, perhaps no one can.
Big Societies, Christian Communities, and Tories (Red or Otherwise)
Whatever the results of the British election, the Red Tory ideal remains promising...and yet, absent a robust civic religion, also probably wanting.
Cameron’s “Big Society” and its Discontents
I can’t seem to get the Orwellian thought of a “National Department of Bigness” out of my head – where everything is kept small and local…except the Department.
Christian Democratic Communities and Teleological States: A Response to God’s Economy
If your religion--or at least your concept of the moral norms of the civil order--lacks a notion of grace, it therefore also lacks a notion of gifts; all it can…
Defending Lasch, Left and/or Right
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS. No one, I think, has ever summed up the longing for a life with front porches--the localist longing which is this blog's raison…
Communitarianism, Conservatism, Populism and Localism: An Updated Survey
Wichita, KS [Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Michael Sandel's giving of the prestigious Reith Lectures for the BBC (hat tip: the ever-watchful Harry Brighouse at Crooked Timber) has prompted me…