individualism 19
Collecting Seeds and Letting Them Go
After I collect them, I scatter the seeds on a likely spot in my one-acre garden
Forget Red vs. Blue, America is Cactus vs. Philodendron
Is there a direct causal connection between America’s embrace of succulents and semi-succulents as houseplants-of-choice and the conspicuous mass movement of Americans to states with the least amount of rainfall?…
I’m Over the American Homer
I’m not canceling Whitman. But my own enthusiasm for his poetry is waning. The poet whose daring versification and daring lifestyle were once seen as the epitome of counter-culture has…
My Mask, My Choice
Unfortunately, much of what is currently driving the discussion is not reason nor compassion but anger.
Human Interaction: The Most Essential Business
Scotsdale, AZ. With a vaccine on the horizon, it is time to think hard about how our country should look when the pandemic ends. The state of America under the…
The Axial Age and the Sacred Community
Our disregard of tradition and community has left us alienated and estranged compared to more traditional societies that rely on a web of family, community, and religion.
Coming Home, COVID-19 Style: A Moment to Reconsider the Natural Family
The lengthy drift from family to individual as the primary social unit carries an alluring promise of autonomy and individualism which sounds so good, so freeing, but it comes up…
Archimedean Points, Above and Below
“To the famous Archimedean boast: ‘Give me whereon to stand and I will move the world.’. Rabelais answers: ‘I move with my ship; and the waves of the world give…
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…
A Sense of Owingness
Like so many others, I spent too much time hoodwinked by the story of liberation, emancipation, and autonomy. What it meant to be free, I supposed, was to be free…
A City upon a Hill
Conservatives are awfully fond of referring to America as a “city upon a hill;” it would be a wonderful thing if they actually made some attempt to understand what that…
Are You Free?
What would Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson say if they were transported to our day?
Self-Esteem v. Standards
The fundamental reason why American children are not educated properly is simply because the American people do not want their children to be educated properly.
God’s Economy
Bush's strong effort to restore the freedom of the church took the political side of this freedom for the whole meaning of the tradition. At the same time, his supply-side…
Constitutional Kookiness
For years, two-faced Republican demagogues have served up phony-baloney about how much they love little country churches, Norman Rockwell paintings, and old-fashioned American life, even while they were simultaneously encouraging…
Family Matters
Kearneysville, WV. The debate, such as it is, between liberals and conservatives frequently centers on issues pertaining to that oldest of institutions, the family. On the one hand, there are…
Beer and Civic Life
Claremont, CA. The news is dreadful: According to the Census, since 2006 we have been living in a republic where, for the first time in the history of the republic,…
Freedom Among Themselves
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. E.D. Kain had a fine quote from Wendell Berry that provides a good definition of community to start any discussion of place and limits: A community is the mental…
