thoughts in and out of season
James Kalb John Ray, an anti-leftist social scientist in Australia, has a couple of blogs for his academic papers (here and here—I don’t know why he has two). Many of the papers are concerned with debunking social science theories advanced in support of efforts to combat what is called “bigotry.” What he finds in … More ...
The local Una Voce chapter did a short email interview of their most recent convert to Catholicism and the Latin Mass (me). Here’s the Q&A:
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- How long have you assisted at the traditional Latin Mass in Brooklyn? How did you find out about it?
A bit more than a year, since the Lent before this
If the West is Catholic Christendom, and Catholic Christianity is the truth to which all roads lead, how come the West has evidently abandoned Catholicism and Christianity?
In a way, that’s like asking “why the Fall”? Men are inconstant. They aren’t satisfied with real goods that make demands and are always the same. They want … More ...
It’s good that the World Council of Churches wrote a letter to Castro regretting a “miscarriage of justice” in a trial of Cuban dissidents. It’s less good that they made a point of saying that their letter was “both friendly and firm in tone.” And the substance of their argument was genuinely bad: authorities should … More ...
The basic contention of this article on male and female brains is that women pay attention to personal relationships and feelings, men to impersonal systems and functions—not much of a surprise. The author doesn’t do much with the claim except observe that women are sensitive, caring and empathetic, while men are clueless and incipiently autistic. … More ...
There are right-wing as well as left-wing opponents of Christianity. Right-wing opponents—exemplified by the European New Right—blame Christianity for the universalism and radical egalitarianism they believe are destroying the West.
Even if it is those things that are to blame for the current state of the West, the complaint is misplaced. Europeans have been looking … More ...
The relation between civilization and cultural revisionism is paradoxical. On the one hand, revisionism visibly contributes to a decline in civilizational standards — rising crime, declining standards of culture, and increasing crudity and violence in daily life. On the other hand, the most educated, cultured and prosperous places are the most revisionist. The moderately pro-family … More ...
The relation between civilization and cultural revisionism is paradoxical. On the one hand, revisionism visibly contributes to a decline in civilizational standards—rising crime, declining standards of culture, and increasing crudity and violence in daily life. On the other hand, the most educated, cultured and prosperous places are the most revisionist. The moderately pro-family and pro-faith … More ...
This account in First Things of Radical Orthodoxy is interesting for a couple of reasons:
All is not well in academia. From rank-and-file victims of Left politics and academic consumerism, who are choosing early retirement, to superstars of postmodernism and critical theory, who now seem to agree that political engagement doesn’t engage anything, more and more academics are asking themselves “why bother?”
It’s surprising it took them so … More ...