“Simone Weil’s Deeper Grace.” Scott Beauchamp explains why Simone Weil is such a necessary thinker for us to listen to. Keep an eye out for my review, coming Monday, of Alan Jacobs’s new book, in which he also recommends Weil’s wisdom.
“Oh, the Humanities!” Ross Douthat reviews Alan Jacobs’s book and diagnoses our technocratic culture’s disinterest in the humanities. Douthat’s prescription:
A hopeful road map to humanism’s recovery might include variations on those older themes. First, a return of serious academic interest in the possible (I would say likely) truth of religious claims. Second, a regained sense of history as a repository of wisdom and example rather than just a litany of crimes and wrongthink. Finally, a cultural recoil from the tyranny of the digital and the virtual and the Very Online, today’s version of the technocratic, technological, potentially totalitarian Machine that Jacobs’s Christian humanists opposed.
“The Agriculture Industry Is Losing Its Voice in American Politics.” Farm consolidation means fewer and fewer voters work in agriculture; this could lead to significant shifts in the US Farm Bill.
“How to Keep Young People from Fleeing Small Towns for Big Cities.” Gracy Olmstead writes about the reasons so many young people are leaving the communities in which they grew up.
“Remembering One of America’s Last Community-Owned Sports Teams.” This is Bill Kauffman writing about baseball. Do I need to say anything else?
“In Defense of Hunting.” Thoreau wrote that “perhaps the hunter is the greatest friend of the animals hunted, not excepting the Humane Society.” Frank Miniter’s defense of hunting explains why Thoreau is indeed right.
