“Living with Integrity.” Comment Magazine has a new issue out that focuses on how liberal individualism has perhaps warped our understanding of integrity. Along with some excellent essays, it includes a conversation with Patrick Deneen.
“Cape Breton Diary Part I: Forgetting & Remembering: Encounters with Three Traditions on the Edge of Oblivion” and “Cape Breton Diary Part II: Cooperation & Supernatural Brotherliness.” Richard Upsher Smith Jr. visits Cape Breton (made famous by the brilliant stories of Alistair MacLeod) and reflects on the history and cultures that have forged this unique community. (Recommended by Rob Grano.)
“‘Monster’ Turns Our Farmers into Serfs and Sharecroppers.” Gracy Olmstead writes about the ongoing costs of agriculture’s addiction to bigness: “These farmers feel trapped in a system of growing and harvesting that is killing their land, animals, and way of life. Yet changing the way they farm, or the trajectory of their towns, seems impossible.”
“The Idolatry of Home: Brexit & the View from Somewhere.” Paul Griffiths reviews Roger Scruton’s latest book and finds it perceptive yet flawed. (Recommended by Eric Miller.)
“How the West Was Lost.” John F. Ross, author of a new book on John Wesley Powell, writes about the one-handed explorer’s insistence that human settlement in the arid West should be limited. (Recommended by Tom Bilbro.)
“When the Ship Has Sailed: Alan Jacobs on Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis.” Robert L. Kehoe III interviews Alan Jacobs about his new book (I reviewed Jacobs’s book for FPR a couple of weeks ago).
China is continuing its technologically-sophisticated crackdown on ethnic and religious minorities. Under Xi Jinping, the Communist Party seems increasingly intolerant of local communities and traditions.
“Who’s Afraid of Nationalism?” Daniel McCarthy reviews Yoram Hazony’s new book, The Virtue of Nationalism, finding it a flawed if illuminating book. Look out for FPR’s review of Hazony’s book next week.
“Perennial Versions of Conventional Crops Offer Benefits to the Environment—But Are They Ready for Prime Time?” Virginia Gewin reports on the Land Institute’s efforts to breed perennial crops, and the fruitful tension between growing such crops now or waiting for them to develop further.
Stanley Hauerwas Doubts Americans Have the Context to Develop Virtues.” Stanley Hauerwas talks about picking okra and doing theology.
Brian Miller explains both how to castrate pigs (it involves having good friends) and how to catch pigs that can outsmart any fence.
