Austin Stone

 Since my name is now on the masthead, perhaps an introduction is in order.  My name is Patrick Deneen, and - like a few other people who write here - I am by trade a political theorist.  I teach at Georgetown University where I hold a chair in Hellenic studies and nearly three years . . . . Continue Reading »

I finally read THE PROBLEM OF GOD—a neglected classic by the great Jesuit theologian and political thinker John Courtney Murray (1904-67).  Here’s the contribution Murray makes to our understanding of postmodern conservatism or postmodernism rightly understood. Distinctively modern . . . . Continue Reading »

Via Hit & Run , I see that Reason is revisting the controversy over the South Korean massage industry. The nutshell version is that Korea has traditionally regarded massage as a vocation exclusive to the blind, but sighted masseurs have in the last few years been lobbying for massage licenses. . . . . Continue Reading »

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have . . . . Continue Reading »

It’s impossible to ignore all the characteristic signposts of the Christmas season—wherever you go the familiar sights and sounds are unmistakably evocative of the winter holiday. Our malls, shops, houses, television stations and radio airwaves are all transformed into vehicles of . . . . Continue Reading »

An uninteresting collusion of circumstances locates me this week in Las Vegas, in a room not in but overlooking the Bellagio fountains (Of Claire de Lune fame, Oceans 11).  The fountains are lovely, but one has only to raise one’s gaze a few degrees to behold, across the . . . . Continue Reading »

When one reaches a certain age there is an inclination to reminisce about how much nicer, better, or easier things were forty or fifty years ago. For most of us our youth was a special time, not so much materially, more so in a spiritual sense. As children we are less spiritually inhibited, more . . . . Continue Reading »

It’s impossible to ignore all the signposts of the Christmas season—wherever you go the sights and sounds are unambiguously evocative of the holiday season.  Still, sometimes as powerful as the familiar Christmas imagery is the impulse to secularize the holiday—to pull . . . . Continue Reading »

The best torture is an effect caused by acts which are not torture. Andrew and Ross reflect. My basic stance on torture is pretty clear but also pretty modern: I want a strict, narrow definition of that which is absolutely impermissible. This suggests great skepticism and discomfort with what Ross . . . . Continue Reading »

"Socially crippled" — strangely, this phrase appears to be kosher while regular-old-crippled is out ("differently abled, thank you"). Either way, at Slate, William Saletan is raising a ruckus over the notion that "appearance alone can be grounds for a potentially . . . . Continue Reading »