virtue 60
Living Alone
The New York Times recently ran a précis of a book by Eric Klinenberg, a professor of sociology at New York University and the author of Going Solo: The Extraordinary…
Untaxing the Virtues
What the political mainstream ignores, unsurprisingly, is that any change in how we raise revenue cannot be only about balancing the numbers. It also involves judgements about the texture of…
Why We Need Jane Austen or How to be a Gentleman with Examples Good and Bad
Austen provides something for which young people—even the jaded ones—secretly long.
Have We Forgotten the Women?
Tradition supposedly bears the thumbprints of Roman patricians with browbeaten wives or frustrated monks who shivered in mediæval abbeys.
An Apologia for Tiger Woods
The rise and fall of Tiger Woods leads to a brief meditation both on beauty and virtue.
And the Jays Have it (Republican Bunning Hazards the Impolitic)
As one of literary bent and so frequently guilty of casting the charge of a Pox On Both Houses at our besotted political parties, I was impressed that at long…
A Tale of Two Banks
He discovered that he could solve the dependence on loan sharks in one village with a mere $27 in capital. For a man who was used to working in millions…
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…
Against Pessimism
Alexandria, VA My last post has led some to conclude that I am a pessimist. Even Ross Douthat, among the most perceptive commentators in print and on internet, suggested that…
It’s the Family, Stupid
Hillsdale,MI. David the King ordered the beautiful Bathsheba to come to him because he could. He also could have her husband killed, and sent the letter that condemned Uriah the…
Stopping a Streetcar with an Umbrella
It is autumn in Amsterdam and damp. The twilight is coming. I await a streetcar to take me home through the labored-over canals, the old working-class neighborhoods on the Amstel.…
Education as Moral Formation: A Localist Proposal
Holland, MI. I heard many fine presentations at Notre Dame’s Center for the Study of Ethics and Culture from November 12-14, and one in particular that piqued my interest was…
… Neither Proud Nor Lonely
C.S. Lewis noted that “If you had asked Lazamon or Chaucer ‘Why do you not make up a brand-new story of your own?’ I think they might have replied (in…
Three Political Principles
Kearneysville, WV. This is a crucial moment in our nation’s history. People of all political stripes recognize that something is deeply amiss. Obama ran a successful campaign championing the idea…
False Economics and Malignant Growth
Patrick Deneen's excellent post this morning on populism, directly invoking Kansas, gives me the occassion to repost a short essay I wrote last year for my on again off again (more off…
Same-Sex Marriage, Abortion, and the Limits of Localism
Kearneysville, WV. Last week I published a piece suggesting ten positions that might serve to constitute a platform for those who are disillusioned by both major political parties and who…
The Stories We Tell…
Philadelphia, PA. If you have read just one of Wendell Berry’s novels or short stories, then you have glimpsed this Kentucky farmer’s love for family, place, and story. In a contemplative…
Making Progress?
Writing on the occasion of Ronald Reagan's death, the NY Times columnist David Brooks articulated the roots of Reagan's success in as accurate and succinct a way as I've seen.…
Waiting for the Americans…
In the late 1970s, my grandfather’s older brother, already in his nineties, was pressing his almost deaf ears to a little portable radio still hoping to hear that “the Americans…
Closing the Circle: An Economy of Values, and Where to Look for It
It is no surprise that many of us connected with FPR welcomed the release in mid July of Pope Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. As John Médaille and…
Tocqueville on the Shores of Titicaca
Amid Alexis de Tocqueville’s writings on revolution in France, there is a passage that rings true for those of us who have spent time in the countryside. He observed that…
“On the Grid”: When Electricity (and Other Things) Came to the Countryside
“Come in and look,” Quintín urged me, as he disappeared with a shuffle through the low doorway in his adobe house. I got up from the wooden bench on which…
What’s Modernity Marx Got to Do With It? (FPR vs. PoMoCon, Part Drei)
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS Blogger though I am, I can't deny that there is a major advantage to arguments conducted through the slower media of paper (to…
