James Hankins

A leader needs the ability to champion an institution’s goals in reasonable, moral terms that can win approbation from both subordinates and outsiders. Bad conduct, incompetent speech, neglect of institutional goods, pursuit of private or factional interests—all of that dishonors and dispirits the whole enterprise. Continue Reading »

Without teachers to pass on the arts of civilization, human life becomes deeply disoriented and we lose our sensitivity to the most refined, worthwhile pleasures.  Continue Reading »

The decline of meritocratic standards in American universities, and the rise of identity-based admissions, is leading to an honor deficit that might well spell the end of elite education. Continue Reading »

The monstrous regiment of administrators in modern universities could learn a thing or two from medieval models of university governance. Continue Reading »

The right pagan philosophers, above all the moral philosophers, can teach us how to escape from the prison of the body’s passions. Continue Reading »

Maybe, just maybe, in the future of America there lies not some woke utopia but a Renaissance of the Western tradition. Continue Reading »

Being elite now means holding a particular set of ideas, not a set of virtues. Virtue is signaled, not acquired.  Continue Reading »

I learned the following ten lessons about democratic society from the pandemic. Continue Reading »

Twenty-twenty was a tough year for the tradition-minded, and so far, 2021 isn’t any better. Those of us who prize the traditions of American governance discovered that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights aren’t worth the parchment they’re written on if We the People can be frightened into . . . . Continue Reading »

The words “piety” and “pious” have an archaic ring; moderns find them hard to use without irony or a sneer. Pejorative senses of the words predominate, such as those the Oxford English Dictionary gives for “piety” (“a sanctimonious statement, a commonplace”) and for . . . . Continue Reading »