Even without a Christian civilization, Christianity remains a holy thing, but it would be a little thing. Partly because of a bad bargain that various Christian traditions made in coming to the United States, dominated after the War Between the States, by a liberal, non-Creedal form of Protestantism, Catholics and Orthodox and Lutherans and other … [Read more…]
Bertrand de Jouvenel was a French political philosopher active in the middle two-thirds of the 20th century. He was considered to be an expert on the American political system, which at least means he didn’t just naively take American leaders and academicians on their word that the United States is a liberal democracy. The United … [Read more…]
Fred Reed is still working away at his vocation of recent years: speaking to a mostly deaf American public about the more serious and fundamental problems confronting Americans or all of mankind in these early decades of the 21st century. That he takes himself, and his writing, less seriously than do many of our sages … [Read more…]
I’ve uploaded a new novel, The Simple Life. It’s the story of some men and women and children gathering together in New England to form a community and take care of the vulnerable and the abandoned. After they start to form that community, the climate turned a little ice-age cold. Many have moved down to … [Read more…]
Albert Jay Nock wrote of a friend of his who had spent some years in the United States and was returning to Europe. This friend spoke of his admiration of many American characteristics, but said he was disturbed on realizing that Americans are the first people in history to pass directly from barbarism to decadence … [Read more…]
A large number of Americans, leading good lives in most ways, believe the United States is and always was a champion of justice and charity towards all nations when we really believe that the only good life is one ordered to the individualistic tendencies so attractive to those descended from the residents of northwestern Europeans. … [Read more…]
In a typically intelligent way, Steve Sailor discusses the latest results from PISA, the educational tests which basically cover the `rich’ (OECD) countries. The article is here, PISA, Piece by Piece, and is worth reading. They say the proof is in the pudding and I’d claim the pudding for education is the resulting culture. As … [Read more…]
I’ve written on this general topic before: as one example, one revealing an important development in my thoughts, see The Need for Abstractions in Moral Self-understanding as one example. In that essay, about the necessity of abstractions, but proper abstractions, I stated: My interest lies in an important stream of thoughts and attitudes of New … [Read more…]
The center hasn’t held and the pieces fly away. Without the most basic sorts of order, the sorts of order which are specifically labeled `moral’ aren’t possible, at least not on a large-scale such as that of the United States or even that of the city of Springfield, MA less than a quarter mile away … [Read more…]
Conspiracies. Don’t underestimate the number and importance of conspiracies in human history, conspiracies political or economic or even cultural but usually criminal and often highly immoral. Don’t overestimate their importance in the general scheme of things but don’t forget their sheer abundance indicates they play a role in God’s story—I’ll pass over a discussion of … [Read more…]