“US Plan to Genetically Alter Crops via Insects Feared to be Biological War Plan.” Erin Durkin reports that “Government-backed researchers in America are aiming to use virus-carrying insects to genetically engineer crops.” What could go wrong?
“A Renaissance of Localism.” Gracy Olmstead reviews Localism in the Mass Age and proposes further topics for FPR to consider in its ongoing defense of localism.
“Conservatism and the Importance of Uncertainty.” E.J. Hutchinson commends classics because “the study of the classics inculcates a salutary uncertainty.”
“Reading Dangerously.” Ian Marcus Corbin reviews Dangerous Minds: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Return of the Extreme Right and finds it unsatisfying. Nevertheless, he weaves a thoughtful response, concluding, “Politics may be a necessary evil—but talking incessantly about politics and viewing your countrymen solely through a political lens is an evil that we’re actively choosing, day by day. We should stop.”
“A School for Eternity.” James Matthew Wilson reviews Alan Jacobs’s new book and argues that Christian humanism is worth pursuing even if it doesn’t result in measurable and systemic social change.
“The Little College Where Tuition Is Free and Every Student Is Given a Job.” Adam Harris reports on Berea College’s unique financial situation that allows it to charge no tuition. It sounds like it works well for them, but it’s not exactly a model other schools can emulate.
“Why Bother to Bear Children in a World Racked by Climate Change?” Elizabeth Bruenig makes the paradoxical (and convincing) case that “a certain disrespect for human life is how we arrived in the climactic fix we’re in now.”
I’ve spent a few days this week in the archives at the American Antiquarian Society, so I’ll also recommend one of the essays I looked at there, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Chiefly About War Matters.” Hawthorne (and his real editor) knew it wouldn’t be popular to speak on behalf of peace to a Union readership hungry to prosecute the Civil War and crush the South, so his “editorial” notes employ irony brilliantly to unsettle bellicose readers.
