Tag: political discourse

The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite: A Review of Musa...

So the core of We Have Never Been Woke is persuasive, and it's hard not to see his thesis in operation in all kinds of fields, once you look at the world his way.

The New Alignment

Contemplating this turn of events in our politics reminds me that we human beings have a strong desire for tidy coherence. Sometimes this desire can be a kind of sickness.

Reasonable People Can Disagree

People often cannot always bridge differing intellectual and political positions, even with people they agree with about most intellectual questions and political issues.

Speaking Responsibly about Religion and Politics: A Review of Who’s Afraid...

This driving principle of love and human flourishing, rooted in the Christian understanding of humanity being made in the image of God, has spurred the great social and political reform movements in American history like abolitionism and civil rights.

Naming and Seeing our Neighbors

In these movements, we are but a speck of dust in the great desert. But here, where our feet are, we hold a power forgotten.

After the Second Cheer: A Review of Two Cheers for Politics

Purdy has a palpable affection for what he calls “the preservative work of being together.” Beginning again from that affection might allow Purdy and his readers to find a fuller “response to political nihilism,” to listen for the voice that Two Cheers is wanting.

Phantom Menace: America’s Enduring Fixation with Fascism

The reader may be none the wiser regarding the definition of fascism, but this book affords a wisdom and moderation of sorts all the same, one that stems from the awareness that in popular rhetoric, fascism is a word full of sound and fury, signifying not much.

Hot Mediums, Hot Tempers

Life is inherently unpredictable and requires engagement without certainty of outcome. It also often requires patience. No matter how many labor-saving and time-bending devices we create, we will never exist in a completely predictable and easy environment. “Convenience” ceases to be convenient when it is sapping us of the courage we need to encounter everyday life.

Learning to Love a Nation: A Review of Richard Mouw’s How...

Siloam Springs, AR. Earlier this month Americans celebrated yet another Fourth of July, marking 246 years of independence. As we approach the country’s semiquincentennial,...

Remembering Our Names After the Fall

Rural Rebellion by Ross Benes, examines the changing politics of rural Nebraska from the perspective of a native son living in Brooklyn. Nebraska is a cycle of poems by Kwame Dawes, a Ghanaian-born poet teaching at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Both address the identity crisis of our time and call us to remember the real names of things.