About George Panichas

Dr. George A. Panichas (1930-2010) was a critic whose main concerns and books centered on the relations between literature, culture, and society. He was the author of numerous books, including Growing Wings to Overcome Gravity, The Reverent Discipline (University of Tennessee Press, 1974), The Critic as Conservator (Catholic University of America Press, 1992), Irving Babbitt: Representative Writings (University of Nebraska Press, 1981). Dr. Panichas was also the editor of Modern Age: A Quarterly Review.

Irving Babbitt & Richard Weaver: Conservative Sages

By |2023-08-16T18:07:14-05:00August 16th, 2023|Categories: Character, Conservatism, Culture, Featured, George A. Panichas, Irving Babbitt, Order, Richard Weaver, Timeless Essays|Tags: |

Moral indolence and apathy, both Babbitt and Weaver stress, must be surpassed if one is to fly beyond the nets of naturalism and temperamental excesses. Character and Culture: Essays on East and West, by Irving Babbitt, with a new Introduction by Claes G. Ryn Visions of Order: The Cultural Crisis of Our Time, by Richard [...]

The Faith of Men of Let­ters

By |2023-08-09T15:25:44-05:00August 9th, 2023|Categories: Benjamin Lockerd, Books, George A. Panichas, Russell Kirk, T.S. Eliot, Timeless Essays|Tags: |

T.S. Eliot cer­tainly pos­sessed cre­ative courage, but he also pos­sessed, as Russell Kirk demon­strates bet­ter than any other com­men­ta­tor, a con­sum­mate spir­i­tual courage. This con­flu­ence of cre­ative and spir­i­tual courage fi­nally per­mits Eliot to at­tain his great­est vi­sion­ary mo­ment in his com­po­si­tion of "Four Quar­tets." Eliot and His Age: T. S. Eliot’s Moral Imagination in [...]

Is Conservatism at the Mercy of Hollow Men?

By |2023-08-02T18:30:33-05:00August 2nd, 2023|Categories: Conservatism, Featured, George A. Panichas, Timeless Essays|Tags: |

A conservatism at the mercy of hollow men is inconceivable, and yet cruelly possible, which ultimately makes it necessary to protect and to conserve the soil of conservative thought and consciousness. That the canons of conservatism must beg to be defended against present-day pretenders who mask their ambitions and antinomies under the rubric of conservatism [...]

The Things That Are Caesar’s: Romano Guardini

By |2023-07-29T21:36:59-05:00March 8th, 2023|Categories: Books, Christianity, Communio, George A. Panichas, Religion, Romano Guardini, Timeless Essays|Tags: |

Romano Guardini reminds us, above all, to render “to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God, the things that are God’s.” His writings help us to recognize the spiritual necessity of not being slaves of the things of the world. His testimony thus pleads with us to disentangle ourselves from the enemies of [...]

What Happened to Excellence?

By |2023-08-02T08:20:20-05:00September 18th, 2022|Categories: Character, Culture, Eric Voegelin, Essential, Featured, George A. Panichas, Great Books, Irving Babbitt, Modernity, Timeless Essays, Virtue|

Excellence predicates aspiration and transcendence, a quest for a higher qual­ity of attainment and, in effect, going beyond the moment. Excellence, which can be defined as the state of excelling and of surpassing merit, is now increasingly one of the lost words of the English language. And increasingly the special qualities that this word de­notes [...]

Restoring the Meaning of Conservatism

By |2022-08-30T13:59:19-05:00August 30th, 2022|Categories: Conservatism, Featured, George A. Panichas, The Conservative Mind, Timeless Essays|Tags: |

The conservative as conservator guards against violations of our reverent traditions and legacy, and is, in fine, a preserver, a keeper, a custodian of sacred things and signs and texts. “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll get knocked down by anything.” —Anonymous It is now more than half a century since the publication of [...]

Reflections on Leadership

By |2022-03-17T21:52:14-05:00March 13th, 2022|Categories: Democracy, Featured, George A. Panichas, Irving Babbitt, Leadership, Timeless Essays|Tags: , |

We need to restore moral value to leadership. In whom do we now recognize and salute leaderly qualities? Who are representative of great leadership? What accounts for the growing diminution of standards of leadership? “In the long run democracy will be judged,” writes Irving Babbitt in Democracy and Leadership (1924), “no less than other forms [...]

Irving Babbitt: An Act of Reparation

By |2021-07-15T11:41:36-05:00August 14th, 2017|Categories: Conservatism, Featured, George A. Panichas, Irving Babbitt, Leadership|Tags: |

Irving Babbitt wrestled with those fundamental life questions that relate to the fate of man in the modern world. What he chose to say about this world of increasing material organization continues to make Babbitt’s work and thought disturbing and unpalatable. Irving Babbitt (1865-1933) never wavered in what he viewed as being his commanding office [...]

The False Idol of Modern Sports in America

By |2019-12-10T13:49:07-06:00December 28th, 2016|Categories: Culture, Featured, George A. Panichas, Sports|

Idolatry is a dimension of the value that is now placed on sports in America, and is expressed in unbridled adoration of physical feats, and in bowing down to the things of the world… “A technologically supported secularism would make men as gods whose mere desires transform material reality to suit their needs.” So writes [...]

A World Without Meaning: “Mrs. Dalloway”

By |2021-04-27T22:00:29-05:00August 4th, 2016|Categories: Featured, George A. Panichas, Literature, Virginia Woolf|

Its contemplation of evil makes “Mrs. Dalloway” a modern classic that speaks in a universal language and has universal meaning… The British writer, C.E. Montague (1867–1929) poignantly describes this debasing process in an acclaimed book that appeared in 1922, Disenchantment. To read Montague’s text regarding his own personal experiences in the war and how “handsome [...]

Soldiers, Shell Shock, & Sadness in “Mrs. Dalloway”

By |2019-04-07T10:50:36-05:00July 25th, 2016|Categories: Featured, George A. Panichas, Literature, Virginia Woolf, War|

“Mrs. Dalloway” has as one of its primary reference points the life and fate of a psychologically maimed soldier who has returned from the Western Front… The British writer, C.E. Montague (1867–1929) poignantly describes this debasing process in an acclaimed book that appeared in 1922, Disenchantment. To read Montague’s text regarding his own personal experiences [...]

Death, Disenchantment, & “Mrs. Dalloway”

By |2019-04-07T10:50:42-05:00July 18th, 2016|Categories: Featured, George A. Panichas, Literature, Virginia Woolf, War|

To read “Mrs. Dalloway” is to re-experience the full violence of war inflicted on body and soul and mind and to comprehend the ravages of cruel history… The British writer, C.E. Montague (1867–1929) poignantly describes this debasing process in an acclaimed book that appeared in 1922, Disenchantment. To read Montague’s text regarding his own personal [...]

The World of the Poet

By |2021-05-28T12:26:44-05:00June 17th, 2016|Categories: Dante, Fiction, George A. Panichas, Greek Epic Poetry, Homer, Imagination, John Milton, Literature, Moral Imagination, Poetry, Sophocles, Virgil|

Man, it is often said, cannot jump over his own shadow. The poet—and by “poet” I mean a writer of imaginative works in verse or prose—leaps over the universe. Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saecula saeculorum. I We not only read a novel, we enter into its created world. We [...]

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