thoughts in and out of season
I just finished (more or less) another book on my Americana reading list, Bill Kauffman’s Ain’t My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism. It’s a straightforward book that uses lots of examples to make the obvious points that conservative locally-minded people mostly don’t like foreign adventures, and that war … More ...
To follow up on recent discussions of America and Americanism I’ve been reading a couple of books: Tom Woods’ The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholic Intellectuals and the Progressive Era and T. J. Jackson Lears’ No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920 . Both are well-written, well-informed, and well worth a … More ...
I’ve left something out of the first two pieces. When people speak of love, loyalty or hatred for America they don’t just mean America as land and people, together with whatever human connections happen to join them. They mean America as a substantive moral unity, as a sort of personality. Otherwise they wouldn’t talk so … More ...
I’ve said what I like about America. But what do I dislike?
Here again it’s hard to avoid cliche and attitudinizing. People have been hating America for a long time. It hasn’t done them much good or shown them to advantage.
On the whole, my dislikes are the flip side of my likes.
I don’t … More ...
What do I like and dislike about America?
It’s hard to comment. It’s like asking what I think about life, or the world. What do I like and dislike about 300,000,000 people from every conceivable background spread out over the better part of a continent?
And compared to what? Most of what’s good and bad … More ...
I was looking at We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition (1960) by John Courtney Murray. For those who don’t know much about him, Murray was a Catholic priest and theologian who
… More ...was especially known for his efforts to reconcile Catholicism and religious pluralism, religious freedom, and the American political order.
A Swedish correspondent wrote to ask why ideas of historical and cultural community never seem to go anywhere today. My response continues some of the thoughts touched on in the recent discussion of social conservatism:
… More ...The basic problem I think is that such ideas depend on notions of what one is, and the modern
Takimag has published the following piece I wrote on social conservatism. Unfortunately, they no longer allow comments, which was always half the fun of publishing there.
Is Social Conservatism Necessary?
by James Kalb
January 15, 2009
Is Social Conservatism Necessary?
The voices of conventional wisdom are telling us once again that the Right should … More ...
Merry Christmas!