The Stump

Civic muscle describes a citizen-centered democracy, where citizens themselves, viewed as agents of change and not mere voters, assume much of the responsibility for the quality of our public life.

Houellebecq describe those aspects of our world that swarm us now, beleaguer us, pen us in. They are the products of a world suffused with technology, and of the attendant detachability of human relations. They condition the warp and woof of our social fabric.

Drawing from both Baldwin and Berry allows us to see that the racist and imperial policies of the past continue to do immense social, economic, cultural, and ecological damage around the globe. Racial injustice is among other things an ecological issue.

How might we recognize and adopt a vision for the future of agriculture inspired by the beauty and goodness of the ox-cart man?

Roosevelt delivered an oration he entitled “Citizenship in a Republic,” but which the world would soon come to call “The Man in the Arena.” Every fresh reading of the speech brings something new into bold relief.

Of course, Amash may well not win, but that really is not the point. The prodigal son had limited hopes when he said goodbye to the pigs, but he had come to himself and he was heading home regardless.

One of the arts of statesmanship is the use of language, of rhetoric, to reshape the architecture of people’s souls and orient them towards political truths.

The romantic impulse toward wholeness, or the longing for when things were better—take a few bad turns in that mood, and you find yourself chanting hymns to blood-and-soil. People can start out defending Berry’s proper prejudices and end up celebrating prejudice itself.

Front Royal, VA. “Who is the American, this new man?” Crevecoeur famously asked. Since the discovery and settlement of the continent across the Atlantic,...

Italy’s tragic status as one of the worst-hit nations is a reminder of its predecessor, the Roman Republic, which endured dozens of epidemics in a history that lasted from 509 to 42 BC. Rome’s survival amidst so much death and disease shows how epidemics, both biological and political, threaten republics.