thoughts in and out of season
There is something that can rightly be called neoconservatism that’s overbearing and abusive by nature. It tries to establish its principles by acting as if everything’s already been settled and yelling at people who seem to have doubts. An excess of bile spills over into all one’s views, it seems. Veteran neocon-basher Paul Gottfried … More ...
Can Christendom be restored? When something started disappearing in the Middle Ages, and has been disappearing more and more every year since then, it looks like the tendency of things is rather against it. Still, there are points that should be kept in mind:
My own dogmatic pronouncement: the fundamental goal today for those in the West who reject what liberalism has become has to be the restoration of Christendom—a public order that recognizes Christianity as authoritative. Without a goal to give an overall orientation, particular efforts to resist liberalism will lack definition and continuity and get nowhere. That … More ...
I found some human interest in this story of a self-righteously egalitarian English politician worried about her son’s education: Abbott says son’s school decision is indefensible.
The problem with egalitarianism is that it destroys all good things, or at least most of them. Good things are usually particular and local and relative to the … More ...
George Will and Virginia Postrel seem to be creating a new fusionism in which true conservatism, like true libertarianism, turns out to be a celebration of Starbucks, manicurists and health clubs—not to mention “tattoo parlors and the emporiums where people get their bodies pierced in so many interesting places.” In a puff piece on … More ...
More on the transformation of “this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England” into a modern technocracy:
I just saw some of the video clips of Terri Schiavo and was horrified. I hadn’t been paying close attention to the case, although in the abstract I opposed what the pro-death people were up to, but seeing is believing. Unfortunately, I saw the clips shortly before going to bed, and ended up losing some … More ...
Attitudinizing that’s gotten old: A. N. Wilson would be sad to see his Church sundered by so small a thing.
Americans have been alternately fascinated and repelled by a post-Empire state of mind among many Englishmen that combined a love of “civilization” understood as decency, order and tolerance, a mild skeptical conservatism, and a … More ...
Hilton Kramer makes a good observation in his essay “Modernism & its institutions” in the current (October) issue of The New Criterion, that postmodernism has created no institutions of its own. One explanation for the situation—Mr. Kramer doesn’t go into this—is that postmodernism is basically a career strategy for functionaries trying to gain power … More ...
A story that suggests the mess the President’s school initiative has left behind: Should Utah opt out of school reform?. No Child Left Behind requires states that accept Federal money to bring all students up to grade level in reading and math by 2013-14, and in the meantime show annual improvements on standardized tests. … More ...