Culture
Given the day, and the surprising amount of interest displayed, ’round here, in conversation of religion’s clash with modernity and postmodernity, current editor Joseph Bottum’s first publication in First Things, back in 1994, merits some consideration: We were all of us raised as moderns, however, and even as I write these words, my own modernness…
Given comment section conversation, and the fact that it’s Good Friday, a Robert Jensen piece from 1993 seems an appropriate item for contemplation: … modernity has supposed we inhabit what I will call a “narratable world.” Modernity has supposed that the world “out there” is such that stories can be told that are true to…
David Lewis Stokes gave some consideration to the work of sociologist Philip Rieff, who died in 2006. Not being familiar with Rieff’s work, I can’t say how much Stokes has added or subtracted, but this strikes me as profoundly insightful: In antiquity the ideal of what it was to be truly human was to become…
It would be wrong, of course, to tar everybody who might consider the legalization of prostitution to be a positive development, but an advocate for the other side, Melanie Shapiro, raised a relevant point in Ed Achorn’s recent column on violent online imagery directed against Shapiro and her fellow activist Donna Hughes: “I think it…
Let’s order things clearly: It was objectionable for a Central Falls high school teacher to dangle an Obama doll upside down with a sign saying “Fire CF Teachers,” because it involved the students in a union dispute. Talk of its being a hate crime is utterly outlandish: To Clifford Montiero, president of the Providence branch…
Kevin Hassett expresses the interesting concern that a second wave of financial crisis may be in our future if homeowners (or, rather, home mortgagers) decide simply to walk away from houses on which they owe more than their worth. All losses would thereby transfer to banks’ bottom lines, eliminating more of the future wealth that…
Perhaps it’s the onset of spring. Perhaps the previous post, on libraries, lowered my “lighter note” inhibitions, but the time feels opportune to raise a topic that’s been kicking around the corridors of my mind since Jay Nordlinger referred to a conservative’s knowledge of and affinity for Pink Floyd. Three points come to mind: Conservatives…
For a variety reasons, I’ve found the reported success of Providence branch libraries to be encouraging. As a writer and reader, I’m obviously invested in the written word. As a tangible spiritualist (if you will), I’m a fan of books, specifically. As a cultural conservative, community involvement is an appealing outcome. And as a libertarian-leaner…
From Reuters. Don’t mess with a century-old tradition even if it is sexist, Canadians told the Conservative government this week, forcing Ottawa to scrap plans to make the country’s national anthem gender-neutral. * * * For nearly 100 years, the anthem has included the line, “True patriot love in all thy sons’ command.” In a…
George Will is concerned that real men are a fading gender in our society: Although [Penn State University History Professor Gary] Cross, an aging academic boomer, was a student leftist, he believes that 1960s radicalism became “a retreat into childish tantrums” symptomatic “of how permissive parents infantilized the boomer generation.” And the boomers’ children? Consider…