All healthy societies must have elites. The real question is: How do we cultivate true elites who will fully carry out their proper role in society? The problem with our present, meritocratic elites is that they do not know how to carry out these obligations. There was a time when the nation was ruled by [...]
As the rising generation is left ignorant of our civilization’s dogmas—or is encouraged to discard them—strange new dogmas rush in to fill the spiritual vacuum… All societies, in all times, have lived by dogmas. When dogmas are abandoned, the social bonds dissolve—swiftly or slowly; and the “open” society ceases to be a society at all, [...]
In A Traveler From Altruria, William Dean Howells reminded Americans that if they continued to justify their egoism and selfishness at the expense of the common good, all that had profited them in this world would have been purchased at the cost of their souls Dismissed as an apologist for the manners and morals of [...]
A democratic society requires an informed base of voters making political judgments on the basis of commonly accepted information. When reliable authorities no longer hold sway, unscrupulous authoritarians can step in to fill the void… “We have a risk of getting to a place where we don’t have shared public facts. A republic will not [...]
Wendell Berry’s poetry sings with the love of a man for his home, enticing the reader to embrace his vision of local agrarian economy as sufficient for the good life. “From knowledge of the forest comes/at last knowledge of forestry:/what, without permanent damage,/can be spared and carefully removed,/leaving the whole forest whole. This learning/’takes decades. [...]
Prudence is at the heart of the conservative disposition toward the world, and prudence calls us to laugh with conscience, recognizing that laughter can just as easily undermine goodness as it can affirm and celebrate that goodness. And lest this sound like a mood-dampening admonishment, let us also remember that the only true festival is [...]
If colleges are rapidly increasing the amount of social justice-based material that they feed their students, is it any wonder that they are experiencing a surge in protests…? It seems one can’t open an internet browser these days without seeing some new story on the unrest and chaos prevailing throughout college campuses. One of the [...]
How could anyone vote for him?” “How could anyone vote for her?” In a contentious election between candidates with historically high disapproval ratings, voters across the country were asking such questions, incredulous that their fellow Americans could be on the other side this time. These questions were encouraged by the rhetorical strategies of both campaigns, which focused on establishing [...]
Editor’s Note: This is the third and final essay in a series; the first essay may be found here; the second may be found here. Analyzed Partial Responses Two other responses to crisis can be identified: economic individualism and spiritual individualism. Here we can give only a simplified characterization of each position. For unlike the unanalyzed [...]
The first task of the wise legislator in his effort to regulate emulation is to actively conduct the passion toward politically useful objects and thereby place the passion "on the side of virtue." Political Architecture: The Natural Order of the Many A full understanding of the passion for distinction requires that we look at man [...]
There are several areas in which distributists and free-market economists can find common ground, and even common ends. Both share a desire for more widespread ownership of the means of production, and a desire for a less powerful centralized state. With this essay, I am venturing into unfamiliar territory. My previous essays featured in this journal have [...]
What Matthew Arnold called “an epoch of concentration” seems to be impending over the English-speaking world. The revolutionary impulses and the social enthusiasms which have dominated this era since their great explosion in Russia are now confronted with a countervailing physical and intellectual force. Communism, Fascism, and their kindred expansive ideologies all in their fashion [...]
Arguably the first twentieth-century dystopian, Robert Hugh Benson authored “Lord of the World,” a prophetic vision of a ravaged world run by an unholy alliance of Free Masons and Communists. The first great dystopian writers of the twentieth century came from upstanding British families. Arguably the first twentieth-century dystopian, Robert Hugh Benson was the third [...]
Preface For almost as long as I have had the privilege of reading, I have read dystopian literature. I started with Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, but I soon rather quickly devoured Brave New World, Animal Farm, and Nineteen Eighty-Four as well as many of the works of Robert Heinlein, Ursula Le Guin, Arthur [...]