Essays of the Week
Preserving the Western Tradition
by Bradley J. Birzer
Why do conservatives conserve? And what is worth conserving? What is free enterprise? What is law? What is dignity? If these questions intrigue you, join Dr. Bradley Birzer as he explores answers to these questions...
by Bruce Frohnen
So long as the government continues subsidizing radical groupthink through its tax, research, and other policies, we will continue to see our children indoctrinated into an ideology that denies reality, precludes self-awareness, and undermines ordered liberty. The “diversity” extolled by academic radicals always has been a false front, covering a drive for ideological uniformity. It is long past time to cut universities loose from forms of public support that enable maintenance of a radical hothouse in which even moderate republicans are considered bigoted extremists and Maoists are considered slightly eccentric carriers of the light of progress. A program of reform could easily be outlined. It is time for some simple solutions to gain the hearing, and support, they deserve...
by George Stanciu
Because of the strong secular faith instilled in us by education, most of us trust that science and technology, democracy, and capitalism, the three legs of Modernity, can bring about only good ends and fail to see that these three triumphs of humankind can diminish the human person. We now know that every program to establish Paradise on Earth ends in disaster. We can turn to the wisdom that Sophocles enunciated 2,500 years ago: “Nothing that is vast enters the life of mortals without a curse,” wisdom that implicitly recognizes that no perfect social order can be created. With the omnipresence of the digital world and the decline of the interior life, the voices of those who are immediately present are often not heard, and the three great teachers of humankind—the Buddha, Socrates, and Jesus—run the risk of not being fully heard, or heard at all. True wisdom results from self-examination and dialogue with others, not from the accumulation of more and more information...
by Eva Brann
The Catholic Christian’s spirit is borne on the two wings of faith and reason; the thoughtfully inclined pagan’s soul rises on the single wing of philosophical desire. The limits of philosophy come from the finitude of the thinker, not from the occurring objects, and its bearing medium is hopeful trust, not certain faith. Thus the soul flying on the single wing of philosophy sets no bounds to its own desire. If there is any truth in my observation that reason and philosophy are separable notions in the Encyclical Fides et Ratio, it is an act of daring: not only an exhortation to professional philosophers to return to foundational rationality, but an invitation to all and sundry to realize their natural philosophical capability. I find this call absolutely remarkable, not only as a Magisterial pronouncement for the faithful, but especially as an incitement to us all to reflect on the relation of faith to thought...
by Donald Devine
Whether or not President Trump is successful with a principled nationalistic agenda or with a more pragmatic one, more traditionally-oriented conservative intellectuals must do some serious thinking, either acceding to nationalism or pragmatism or finding a new story. As long as there were fusionists who actually believed in such a synthesis to limit power, as did Buckley, Meyer, and Reagan, different elements of the right synthesis could be accommodated, adjusting traditionalism and libertarianism pragmatically to circumstances but under enduring self-evident principles. Either as loyal opposition or ally, a conservatism envisioning a deeper role for freedom and tradition than nationalism normally implies will need to revisit its principles and make them more relevant for modern times, to save the ship of state from floundering into the most serious temptation in modern times: to dream of a this-worldly political salvation forced through by political power...
by Lance Banning
James Madison’s mind was changed considerably by his experience at the Convention. It was changed again as he attempted to encompass and explain what the Convention had accomplished, for there was little of the propagandist in his makeup. The more he thought and wrote about the finished Constitution, the more he managed to convince himself, as well as others, that the Constitutional Convention had indeed prepared a viable corrective for the nation’s ills–in fact, the best solution to the central riddle of a liberal republic that human ingenuity had ever yet advanced. It was a fragile settlement, no doubt, and not the one he had originally intended. But there was also little vanity in this Virginian’s makeup. As he decided that the Constitution might be wiser than the plan he had concocted in his closet, Madison was making a commitment, too, to keep a careful watch on policies or constitutional constructions that might overturn it. The “father of the Constitution” did not have to travel quite so far as it is sometimes thought in order to become co-author of the Jeffersonian persuasion...
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