The West is no different than any other civilization, in that it is made up of men and women, some who choose to do good and some who choose to do ill

Courage to Defeat Postmodernism by Daniel Frampton If there is any one principle that underpins the West, then it is the belief that a man’s happiness and virtue is rooted in the realisation that he is not an animal, that at the moment of self-sacrifice he transcends the confines of his body and reaches for something higher. This was the faith—the faintest of all trespassing flames, animating the West, its history and its heroes—that ignited with such ferocity in the hearts of the fallen hoplites at Thermopylae 2,500 years ago. Since in the West we are not slaves, but free beings able to choose, unlike the Persians in Xerxes’ army, we take on this great burden of choice that necessitates no small amount of nerve. For there is a way out of postmodernism: courage. You do not reason yourself out of the postmodern, you fight your way out. Western civilization is founded on this one faith, this one great volitional activity...  [MORE] Why Intellectual Work Matters by Zena Hitz Intellectual life provides an escape in that it is beyond “straitened circumstances,” but the escape is again a flight into realities beyond oneself: animal behavior, astronomy, and the mechanics of the inner life. The intellect has no limit to its subject matter: It reaches greedily for the whole of everything. It was the prospect of somehow holding the whole world within oneself that led Plato and Aristotle to think of the intellect as something divine, as holding out the furthest heights to which a human being could reach. The retreat that intellectual work requires does not function only as an escape. It is also a place of salutary distance, a place to set aside our agendas to consider things as they really are. When we think, consider, and reflect, we struggle to allow our desire for truth to prevail over the desires that conflict with truth...  [MORE] History as Tragedy and Farce:  The Rise of Nationalism by Mark Malvasi Militant nationalists rejected the emphasis on individual liberty in favor of national unity. Determined to achieve or to restore national greatness, they assailed parliamentary government for breeding division and spreading discontent. They accused minorities and foreigners of contaminating the purity of the nation, and persecuted them in an effort to rid the land of such afflictions. Displays of military prowess came to symbolize the vigor of the national spirit and the resolve of the national will. Those who embraced such positions were impervious to rational inquiry. On the contrary, they had abandoned reason and made superstition, fear, and hatred vital components of political life...  [MORE] Hatred Comes in Many Colours:  The Politics of Pride & Prejudice by Joseph Pearce The problem, ultimately, is Pride. And it’s no coincidence that both sides wear their Pride with pride. The anarchists wear their Pride at “Pride” rallies, hating marriage, chastity and Christianity; the racists wear their Pride as “White Pride” or “Black Pride” rallies. The politics of Pride comes in many colours, not merely connected to the colour of the skin but to the colour of the shirts that we choose to wear: red shirts, brown shirts, black shirts. In truth, it’s not the colour of the Pride that matters but Pride itself. Where there is Pride, there is prejudice; where there is prejudice, there is hatred; where there is hatred, there is the dehumanizing of the enemy; and where there is the dehumanizing of the enemy, there is the extermination that follows...  [MORE] Relentless Rationalism by Jacob Bruggeman To be sure, modern science provides the most effective phraseology for explaining the workings of the world. What is more, the explosive rapidity with which new technologies have been developed and used by humanity has been a boon to fighting global poverty, addressing concerns of environmental sustainability, and helping us live healthier lives. Nevertheless, Relentless Rationalism, if ever grafted onto a governing body, would be decidedly disastrous for humanity. Relentless Rationalism atomizes humanity, aiming for a decades, perhaps centuries-long scientific and surgical removal of that elusive, enigmatic thing: human nature. It burns up the "life, mind, morality and reason" of man, seeing in the ashes the only true liberation of humanity. The quest for knowledge without enchantment ends in the bonfire of all things characteristically human...  [MORE] What the West Has Given the World by Bradley Birzer The entire discipline of philosophy began in the West, and it began as a way to find the universal that holds all humans together so that there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, black nor white—but all made one through the Logos. As conservatives, we have a duty to our ancestors, ourselves, our children, and their children to remember and conserve what must be remembered and what must be conserved. While the West has made more than its share of mistakes—after all, the West is no different than any other civilization, in that it is made up of men and women, some who choose to do good and some who choose to do ill—it has also done some things better than any other civilization, or, at the very least, introduced things to the world that the world than claimed for all of humanity...  [MORE] Found in the Flood: Our Hurricane Survival Story Guiding the Pilgrimage of Life: The Liberal Arts The Threat of Free Speech in the University Was James Madison an Opponent of Democracy? Recovering the Sacred in Music Stephen Tonsor on Christopher Dawson and Religion How Can We Fix the Liturgy? The Measure of Abraham Lincoln “Occasioned by General Washington’s Arrival in Philadelphia”