Squared circles squared
My review of Daniel Mahoney’s recent book has provoked a response from Professor Mahoney, which appears (along with my rejoinder) in the current (March 2011) issue of First Things.
Inquiring minds want to know
Various correspondents have proposed or at least asked about Christian justifications for homosexuality. Here’s a sort of canned response that seems to address most concerns:
… More ...I don’t view the issue as basically a question of authority. We need a definite way of life, and that requires authority, but legitimate authority is normally rational. It asks
Squaring the circle
That’s the title of my review of Daniel Mahoney’s The Conservative Foundations of the Liberal Order: Defending Democracy Against Its Modern Enemies and Immoderate Friends in the current issue of First Things.
Constitutional Amendment to Prevent Jihad?
Lawrence Auster at VFR (http://www.amnation.com/vfr/_) wonders whether a Constitutional amendment is necessary to prevent jihadists from being allowed to exercise a supposed right to advocate jihadism. The answer is definitely not. The First Amendment, as interpreted somewhat reasonably by the Supreme Court, bars calls to violence (by even jihadists) in the here and now, which … More ...
Pitch to a Gen-Y rightist
Over at Alternative Right I had a discussion with a participant who—like a lot of people who comment there—tended toward a sort of action-oriented tribal relativism. His basic thought seemed to be that social order doesn’t go very deep but comes out of crude drives plus choice, with this and that expedient added in to … More ...
Musical interlude
I’ve done paintings and movies recently, so why not music? Here—if you’re in the mood—is a Buxtehude setting of Psalm 41:2-3, Quemadmodum desiderat cervus, ad fontes aquarum, ita desiderat anima mea, ad te, Deum. Sitivit anima mea ad te, Deum, fontem vivum. Quando veniam et apparebo ante faciem tuam? (“As the deer longs for the … More ...
Reason Defended?
[The following review appeared in the Spring 2010 issue of Modern Age.]
The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam’s Threat to the West, by Lee Harris (New York: Basic Books, 2007)
What do we make of radical Islam? Of Islam in general? Of the present state of the West? It is easier not to … More ...
The tyranny of pluralism
Here’s Hollywood’s take on the meaning of the Battle of the Bulge in 1949, four years after the shooting stopped:
(Battleground, 1949)
“We must never again let any force dedicated to … a super idea or a super anything become strong enough to impose itself … We must be smart enough and tough … More ...
No horizontal way out
In his comments on my discussion of alternate modernities, Paul Gottfried observes that in our present situation there’s no educational program, system of alliances, or political and cultural strategy that seems likely to get us out of the hole we’re in.
I agree. If we start with what I called the modern “attempt to … More ...
