conservatism 115

In the late 1970s, my grandfather’s older brother, already in his nineties, was pressing his almost deaf ears to a little portable radio still hoping to hear that “the Americans…

Kearneysville, WV. Barack Obama was swept into office as a firm and unmistakable repudiation of George W. Bush. After enduring the longest war in our nation’s history, after cringing at…

Devon, PA.  During the next few months, I shall be writing on the centrality of beauty and art to a flourishing human life in general, to a sound theology, and…

I will admit that I did not keep up with all of the discussion that ensued from various blogs that tried to discern the differences between folks that write over…

“Half-knowledge is more victorious than whole knowledge: it understands things as being more simple than they are and this renders its opinions more easily intelligible and more convincing.” --Nietzsche Several…

East Lansing, MI. Mark Mitchell's brief essay on Sarah Palin reminded me of a Treasonous Clerk installment I wrote back in November, contemplating the significance of Palin's persona for American…

Wichita, KS In honor of Canada Day, in the fine federation (though these days, in the eyes of a majority of Canadians, less a federation than an Americanized nation, or…

Seattle, WA Robert Nisbet's 1953 book The Quest for Community has rightfully achieved that rare and estimable status of "classic."     What Nisbet saw more clearly than most of his contemporaries …

Many who are alarmed at the prospect of the “abolition of man” have found in Huxley’s Brave New World a dark and salutary warning – an imaginative rendering of our…

Wichita, KS [Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Michael Sandel's giving of the prestigious Reith Lectures for the BBC (hat tip: the ever-watchful Harry Brighouse at Crooked Timber) has prompted me…

Wichita, KS. Fifteen years ago, when my wife and I got married, we had a lot of inchoate ideas and aspirations, many of which were relatively humble, generally egalitarian, and…

JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS.  The review below was first published in the Intercollegiate Review in the fall of 2006.  Look Homeward, America was my first introduction to the work of the…

I posted this piece at What I Saw In America on Friday last; for any readers of both these sites, I apologize for the redundancy.  However, I think this posting…

Devon, PA.  Upon reading an essay of Patrick Deneen's, a close and dear relative recently wrote me, protesting the uselessness of the terms "liberal" and "conservative."  They are simplifying terms, and inadequate…

Many folks--including Rod and the guys at Plumb Lines, just to cite two from our own blogroll--have taken notice of Newt Gingrich's impending conversion to Catholicism. For several months, I've…

Alexandria, VA. For many years now, "environmentalists" have sought to thwart the extension of forms of commerce and economic development that prove destructive of "eco-systems" or threaten the delicate balance…

Rod Dreher posts a letter from a young 'un asking about law school and farming.  Similarly, a commenter here last week asked: I have only ever been acquainted, through my extended…

SOUTH BEND, IN. Edmund Burke's reputation has suffered much among conservatives during the past few years. Russell Kirk, of course, held him up as an exemplary genius of the conservative…

DALLAS, TX. I am bemused, appalled, and fascinated -- more or less at the same time -- by the foofarah over Rush Limbaugh's CPAC speech. His version of conservatism is…