thoughts in and out of season
James Kalb The following essay appears in the December, 2014 First Things:
… More ...Why has the equivalence of same-sex and opposite-sex relations suddenly become a moral and social absolute? That it has is plain to see. In the Supreme Court’s recent Windsor decision, which struck down much of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, the majority
I have another column at Catholic World Report, this one about the necessity of a settled understanding of human nature, the difficulty of establishing on in global technocratic society, and what to do about that situation.
A correspondent sent me the following passages from Raids on the Unspeakable by Thomas Merton:
… More ...The Unspeakable. What is this? Surely, an eschatological image. It is the void that we encounter, you and I, underlying the announced programs, the good intentions, the unexampled and universal aspirations for the best of all possible worlds. It is
My latest column at Crisis Magazine says that the Church should be very cautious in supporting secular political projects. It makes bishops feel they’re involved in something important but the ultimate point of the project is likely to be something inhuman because that’s the nature of modern political life.
[I gave the following talk at the 2014 conference of The H. L. Mencken Club.]
The Left doesn’t like the idea of human nature. It tells them they’re not free to do what they want. From a factual perspective it tells them people don’t change much, so the way things were in the past is … More ...
My column for October finally appeared at Catholic World Report. (They had been busy reporting on the late lamented or rather lamentable Synod.) It’s a sort of general account of culture war throughout the ages that notes its unavoidability.
My latest column at Crisis Magazine is about the current crisis of leadership throughout society: why it exists, why it’s a big problem, and what to do about it.
Social liberals take it for granted that social conservatives are meddling, tyrannical, and incipiently violent. My current column at Catholic World Report deals with the issue. Basic response: if liberal views simply transcribe obvious human reality, then conservative views are indeed an attempt to interfere that can be expected to bollix things up in all … More ...
Suppose people had done something sensible about the deficiencies of postwar America. What would it have been? And why did they do all the stupid stuff instead? To find out, read my latest Crisis piece.
Why is it that lefties only bother with three of Jonathan Haidt’s moral concerns while righties care about all six? My current column in Catholic World Report explains it all for you. (It also tells you who Jonathan Haidt is in case you’re not up on all that.)