thoughts in and out of season
The following essay was written for A Paleoconservative Anthology: New Voices for an Old Tradition, edited by Paul Gottfried, but was left out (apparently due to an administrative slip-up—editorial changes, author’s bio etc. had all been agreed on). A slightly revised version will be published in the Australian journal Observer and Review.
Maureen Mullarkey’s characteristically vivid comments on Pope Francis and the environment have drawn much attention from participants in the Internet Francis Wars. One big reason is that her comments sometimes go beyond the vivid to the caustic (“press toads,” “ideologue,” “meddlesome egoist,” “megalomania”). Another is that they were made on her blog at First Things… More ...
Racial differences and attachments are real, and they can’t be educated or administered away. Family, ancestry, and history are part of who we are, so they are part of identity. People take them to heart, and that’s not going to change.
So why do respectable people get so weird about them, and claim race doesn’t … More ...
Here, in an unpublished essay, I discuss the Windsor case, what it shows about our current situation, and how the Churches should respond.
Windsor, Inclusiveness, and the Churches
by James Kalb
In United States v. Windsor, the case that invalidated the Federal definition of marriage as the marriage of man and woman, the Supreme … More ...
Here’s a chapter from 2008 for a projected collection of essays. The book never got published, but here’s what I wrote:
PC and the Destruction of Culture
by James Kalb
Political correctness is an odd tendency. It does not fit in with how people normally think about things, so no one knows what to make … More ...