localism 172
Making a Home in my Hometown
As I learn how to be a sticker, I hope to continually see the beauty of Battle Creek, no matter its faults. I want to persist in finding the good…
A Man From Nowhere
I am not now lamenting my station, which is a kind of existential loneliness, though at times I do. I’m putting it down in writing because I know for certain…
Communities of Memory
To know a particular hometown, with its triumphs and tragedies, its gains and losses, its names and namesakes, its heroes and eccentrics, its myths and peculiarities, its landmarks and symbols,…
Community Greening in The Lord of the Rings: Samwise Gamgee and the Power of Local Care
J. R. R. Tolkien imagined a society characterized by people who care for one another and their natural spaces, cultivating human and ecological flourishing in their communities.
All the Ways You Can Stay
So leave if you must, but perhaps not today. Stop and consider all the ways you can stay.
The Joyful Christian Nationalist: How Stephen Leacock Loved His Home by Resisting the World
Undergirding Leacock's work was not a desire to restore a previous version of Canada, but to preserve the gifts God had given: the best traditions of the past, the communities…
More of the Familiar in Wendell Berry’s How It Went
He has never chased the new or tried to be avant-garde. Even in the physical act of writing, he has famously resisted the “advantages” of a personal computer and has…
Reject the Consumer: Imagining A New Identity Politics
Freeing ourselves from the corrosive Consumer identity isn’t an individual task, but a call for system change rings hollow if we are afraid of personal change. How can we imagine…
Along the Garden Path of my Fathers
They know their neighbors; they know their village; they know their land. They have their own vernacular that everyone who lives there understands because their father and mother taught them,…
Focus on the Local: A Conversation with Carl Trueman
Though his recent bestselling books trace the roots of several deeply entrenched beliefs about human nature and our world that have led us into bewildering territory, Trueman concludes both books…
The This-ness of This Place: Introducing Belle Point Press and Mid/South Anthology
Raised in Eastern Oklahoma with roots older than living memory in the Natural State, we look forward to supporting new authors while connecting readers with the long thread of our…
Getting to Know the Neighbors
We can increase the aesthetic appeal of our neighborhood by smashing the suburban quasi-monocultures of landscaping plants purchased from big box stores and restoring the rightful biodiversity of our ecosystems...Behind…
The Only Bonds to Be Found: A Review of The Most Beautiful Place on Earth
An imagination like his, fictions like his – born from affection – may not provide us with data or answers but may help us feel “somehow more substantial and less…
Remembering Irving Petite, “Issaquah’s Thoreau”
Today the man described as “Issaquah’s Thoreau” is largely forgotten. His books have been out of print for years and the anniversary of what would have been his 100th birthday…
Localism and the War on Drugs: A Review of The Least of Us
For Quinones, the twin opioid and meth epidemics have their origins in the destruction of community. The decline of local institutions creates a vacuum of isolation and hopelessness in which…
The Call of Farm Life: The Challenge of Constancy and Fidelity
While in my current brief stint in D.C., I am often given a puzzled look when I tell someone that I am going back to the farm: “You’ve made it…
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…
Columbiana: In Want of Cram
Neither Columbiana nor Sewickley perfectly realize the role of Cram’s ideal walled town, but Sewickley comes much closer. While not perfect, it offers a real-world example of an economically vibrant,…
The Grace of Belonging: A Review of You are Not Your Own
Emily Wenneborg reviews You are Not Your Own, by Alan Noble. Noble confronts the lie of autonomy that shapes Western society and counsels radical dependence on God’s grace.
Vanishing Little Languages
Andrew Figueiredo describes his family connection to Minderico, a language belonging to the Portuguese town of Minde. Localists must join the fight to save endangered languages, if only because they…
The Paradox of American Places
Daniel Elazar was emphatic that a “renewed sense of localism” was essential to America’s future. For Americans, this means renewed intentionality about our local communities, not merely living in one…
Stories That Bind Us
Despite differences that are exacerbated at the national level, we often share significantly more in common with our “enemy” when we interact with them at human scales.
Prospects for Localism (and a New Podcast)
This recording also serves as the inaugural episode of the Brass Spittoon, a new podcast from the Front Porch Republic. We’ll chew on issues timeless and timely, with a focus…
The Long Road to National Healing
The rancor of this political season provides a diversion from the hard and serious work that must be done to reverse the great unraveling that America is experiencing.
