Thirty-five years ago, America was enjoying a bit of a patriotic swoon. The go-go ’80s were underway as the country finally emerged from a debilitating recession. Los Angeles hosted the 1984 Summer Olympics—the world fell in love with a winsome teenager from West Virginia when Mary Lou Retton became the first American female to win … Continued
Remember Charles Reich? Probably not. But you probably do know the phrase “the greening of America.” It is Reich’s coinage, the title his fruity 1970 bestseller that began life as a 39,000-word essay in The New Yorker. I hadn’t thought about Reich for years. When the news came a few days ago that he had … Continued
Perhaps the most amusing intramural intellectual squall on the Right these past few days has centered on “Against David French-ism,” Sohrab Ahmari’s recent polemical reflection on liberalism in First Things. I did not think that Sohrab had all that much to say directly about the man who provided him with the title of his essay, … Continued
Looking around the cultural landscape today, I conclude that we are in the midst of a sort of negative religious revival: let’s call it America’s First Great Awokening. Evidence of our society’s wokeness—a false awakening sparked by political grievance—is all around. I’d like to begin with what the philosopher Nicholas of Cusa called the “coincidence … Continued
The revival of reparations talk signals an opportunity for a serious discussion of the revival of republican self-government or strong citizenship. Instead, we get the blithe attitudes of Democrats and the grumbling about handouts from Republicans which signal the bipartisan lack of seriousness—a deficiency also characterizing disputes over immigration and “diversity.” The best opportunity for … Continued
A great deal of the Left’s grip on the culture is rooted in its collective ability to manipulate information in the form of official narratives in the news, history, or statistics. The contemporary political goal comes first, and the facts are backfilled, manipulated, and emphasized or deemphasized accordingly. In other words, much of the Left’s … Continued
Sometime around A.D. 60, in the age of Emperor Nero, a Roman court insider named Gaius Petronius wrote a satirical Latin novel, “The Satyricon,” about moral corruption in Imperial Rome. The novel’s general landscape was Rome’s transition from an agrarian republic to a globalized multicultural superpower. The novel survives only in a series of extended … Continued
Although the mechanism is mysterious, it often seems as though a centralized control center is issuing out for dissemination the turns of phrase and interpretations of events to be spread by celebrities, prestige journalists, and other influencers. These narratives end up influencing and controlling the way we think about things. Political correctness has been a … Continued
At the passing of a priest, age 91, who was also a profound scholar and inspiring teacher, one expects to see praise of his dozens of books, hundreds of writings, 60 years’ worth of lectures, and generations of students. In the case of Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., the longtime Georgetown University political theorist who … Continued
[fusion_text columns=”” column_min_width=”” column_ rule_style=”default” rule_size=”” rule_ ] [fusion_text columns=”” column_min_width=”” column_ rule_style=”default” rule_size=”” rule_ ] Disclosure requires at the outset that I mention Victor Davis Hanson wrote a very generous foreword to my book on President Trump, though from a somewhat different angle. I would have declined this assignment if it required, in all … Continued
