thoughts in and out of season
James Kalb Does anyone know what “reconciliation” means in church-speak? Dr. Schori, the Episcopal Presiding Bishop, uses it quite a lot, and calls it the mission of her church, but you never see a clear definition.
So far as I can tell, the word refers to a state of affairs in which everybody remains as much … More ...
As my previous entry suggests, liberal and libertarian thought is oddly rigid and one-dimensional. Everything is what it is, without regard to anything else, Many things follow from that atomizing view of reality. In the ethical realm, for example, it follows that wills are either coincident or opposed, and the only way to deal with … More ...
An article at LewRockwell.com today provides, with libertarian clarity, an example of a basic vice of liberal and libertarian thought. One of their writers complains about opposition to a local measure to extend the hours of liquor sales. For him, opposing such a measure is the same as “telling the voters … to their faces, … More ...
Someone just did a survey of under-10-year-olds in England, and found they thought that celebrity was the best thing in the world, followed by good looks and wealth. That fills in the picture presented by the survey of teenaged girls last year that found that 63 per cent wanted to be glamour models, while 25 … More ...
The freeing of the Old Mass seems to be drawing closer. There have been assurances to that effect from a leading cardinal, as well as petitions from various French and Italian intellectuals that may help counteract interventions from French hierarchs worried that Charles Maurras is going to rise from his crypt or some such.… More ...
Disputes are always with us, so it is not surprising that John Rawls says that a society with liberal democratic institutions always has a plurality of views on fundamental issues. According to Rawls, the consequence is that we have to accept his principles of government, because the alternative is oppression and violence, and because (apparently) … More ...
Hegel points out somewhere that at one time men started the day by praying or reading the Bible, while in his day they started it by reading a newspaper. Today I suppose they mostly turn on the TV or radio or go online. Whatever the specifics, Hegel’s general point is an important one. When you … More ...
Still, in spite of the gloom and doom of the last posting, life goes on, and no cloud but has a silver lining. For example, a big benefit of the recent scandals in the Catholic Church and growing anti-religious trends in Western life is that they’ve squashed a lot of the happy talk the Church … More ...
First it was the French Jews, then the Dutch, then the Germans, all people with fertility rates well in the red, who were reported to be leaving their homelands. Now it seems it’s the British too: Almost one in 10 British citizens living overseas. In the meantime the flow of Third World immigrants … More ...
When I passed through the Houston airport recently they kept threatening over the PA system to arrest anyone who made jokes about airport security. Since that’s where we are, it’s hard to believe many people will take complaints from the airport imams seriously. The Muslims still seem rather ham-handed manipulating public views. Maybe they should … More ...