The Death of Gratitude
By Jeremy Adams | When I was a boy, my father’s favorite day of the school year was not the last day, but the day before his students went on Christmas vacation. Invariably, he would come home and beckon me to his car to help him carry his “embarrassment of riches” into the house. Every year, I would gaze in wonderment into his back seat at a smorgasbord of cakes, cookies, wrapped presents, and Christmas cards, given to him by appreciative and thoughtful…
Through a Screen, Darkly
By Emina Melonic | The experience of information consumption has undergone a drastic devolution. News works on the principle of transience; but, if you will pardon the pun, this isn’t news to anyone. In the past, most people were able to differentiate between current, fast-moving, and quickly changing events and true knowledge. Let alone the question of wisdom. But these days, the pace at which everything is moving and the amount of untruth…
A Civilizational Crisis
By J.D. Vance | So much of what needs to happen in the conservative movement these days is courage. Courage to respond to the threats and the reactions of the left. Courage to stand on principle. Courage to offer new ideas to new challenges. And I’m going to talk a little bit later tonight about family policy, and I have to tell you a little bit of a story, which is the last time that I spoke about family policy in Washington, D.C., I think three years ago, and my remarks were picked up…
Bleached New World
By Emina Melonic | In Todd Haynes’ 1995 film, “Safe,” Julianne Moore plays an affluent housewife, Carol White. Carol leads a comfortable life with her husband and stepson. They live in an upscale home with a servant; she spends her days gardening, taking aerobics classes, and seeing her female friends. But Carol feels isolated from her environment. The relationship with her husband is polite and respectful but distant. Her stepson doesn’t much like her, and her friendships are based on social…
Taking Literature Personally
By Dwight Lindley | As recent studies have shown, and numerous anecdotal accounts confirm, the mainstream English department is in declining health, and unsure of how to help itself get better. Many previous commentators have laid bare the structural sins of the discipline: hyper–politicization, specialization to the neglect of central texts…
The Art of the Question
By Joseph Woodard | With typical ashen-gray melancholy, the old dean of St. John’s College once warned about the Great Books seminar: “You have to let a thousand golden moments just pass by… a thousand brilliant insights slip away…” Back then, I thought he was talking about the timetable, the students, or even rules for tutoring. He was saying that and more. A great work is not a formula. It is a real thing: an old manor house with twisting corridors and hidden…
How to Fight Being Cancelled
By Grace Daniel | By now there are enough “cancel culture” stories to fill volumes. After my own story about standing up to a woke mob—and succeeding—went viral on Twitter, I decided to speak out, because I am convinced that Americans need more encouraging stories about standing up to cancel culture, and information on how they can do it themselves. In order to withstand attacks, you’ll need to be armed with an understanding…
Of Art And Ethics And Their Children
By Micah Meadowcroft | I don’t think it will come as too much of a surprise to anyone if I say that in high school I was a dedicated fan of the band Mumford & Sons. Americana instrumental flourishes (banjo rock solos) paired with a decidedly Anglo lyrical tradition (Shakespeare, the King James Bible…Plato?) and crystalline earnestness was…
Why I Need an AR-15
By Dan Gelernter | I don’t need an AR-15 for hunting: It’s not even legal to take a deer with one in my state—the caliber is too small. I also don’t need an AR-15 for self-defense, though I’d want to have one if someone broke into my house. And I certainly don’t need one just because it’s a beautiful piece of engineering. I need an AR-15 because the government doesn’t want me to have one. Governments hate private weapons, and have always hated…