Patriotism is an essentially backward-looking virtue, one rooted in shared history.

Essays of the Week

Conservatism and Our  Constitutional Inheritance by Greg Weiner The constitutional inheritance is not merely a gift to be expended or consumed; it is a responsibility to be stewarded. This sense of intergenerational obligation—debts to the past and future—is the most solid and powerful grounding for originalism and respect for constitutional form. Americans are a more naturally conserving than a revolutionary people. Patriotism is that: it is not a celebration of contemporary interest or of a future to be conquered. It is an essentially backward-looking virtue, one rooted in shared history. Our legendary, critics claim excessive, reverence for the Constitution arises largely from a sense of obligation and deference to custom, combined with a duty to generations to come, not from an immediate appreciation of constitutional excellence. An appeal to that sense can persuade. But the appeal must be made... [MORE] Thomas Jefferson &  the American “Provincial” Mind by David Hoeveler The provincial roots of the American Revolution are readily visible in New England and in other colonies like New York and Pennsylvania. They are less obvious in Virginia, where Anglicanism was the prevailing religion and where English settlers first came not so much to escape as to fulfill English social and political ideals. But Virginia furnished American rebels in abundance, Jefferson among them. Jefferson came to see the issues of his day in terms of provincialism, with its republican, moral, and sentimental bonds, and the cosmopolitan and imperial ways of England that threatened to destroy them. Indeed, Jefferson’s value to us as an American thinker hangs critically on his own articulation of the generic provincial mind... [MORE] Michelangelo’s Last Pieta by Dwight Longenecker The Florentine Pieta was not commissioned. Instead, Michelangelo intended it for his own tomb. He worked on the sculpture in his spare time, late into the night with a candle fixed to his hat for light. Hindered by the flawed marble and his failing powers, his assistant said Michelangelo smashed the carving in a fit of frustrated rage and abandoned the work. What adds poignancy to the tale is that most commentators believe the old man in the cowl tenderly cradling the Christ is a self-portrait of the artist. To complete the experience, as you view the sculpture, on the wall behind you is Michelangelo’s sonnet on old age... [MORE] Irving Babbitt’s Higher Will by Bradley Birzer As the men around Socrates so wisely understood, we use the space offered by free choice to pursue not just the good, the true, and the beautiful, but we pursue these things through the four pagan virtues: prudence—the ability to discern good from evil; fortitude—the ability to persevere against all odds; justice—the giving of each man his due; and temperance—the use of earthly goods as a form of plastic, a means to an end. Later, of course, St. Paul would add the Christian virtues of faith—the ability to see beyond ourselves; hope—the confidence that we matter; and charity—the giving of one’s self for another... [MORE] America: Liberal or Conservative  at the Founding? by Gleaves Whitney The American founding revitalized Britain’s governing principles and thus could be seen as a conservative event. However, in the process of revitalizing Britain’s governing principles, the American founding also unleashed the ideas of liberty and equality to an unexpected degree. After 1776, the empire of liberty would spread as never before. Also after 1776 and especially after the four years culminating in 1865—what Lord Acton called “the Second American Revolution”—the empire of equality would spread as never before. The American founding, paradoxically, was just as much an act of revolution as it was an act of conservation... [MORE] Returning Humanity to History:  The Example of John Lukacs by Russell Kirk A reformed history must be imaginative and humane; like poetry, like the great novel, it must be personal rather than abstract, ethical rather than ideological. Like the poet, the historian must understand that devotion to truth is not identical with the cult of facts. Obsessed by the Fact, a nineteenth-century idol, most modern historians have forgotten that facts, too, are constructions—and meaningful only in association. It is the event, rather than the isolated fact, which is the proper concern of historians. In the commendable sense, the genuine historian must be at home with fiction. If the historian is to supplant the novelist as culture’s guardian, he must learn to write more nobly and more philosophically than he does today... [MORE] Why Our Civil Discourse Is Broken Luther Martin of Maryland & the Constitutional Convention The Great Books: Enemies of Wisdom? Coming Home in “Scrutopia”: A Happy Week With Roger Scruton The Presocratic Origins of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “Pied Beauty” The Existential Expeditions of Wes Anderson The World’s a Stage: The Drama of Faith President Trump vs. the Globalist Crusaders Heaven Is a Playground