James Hankins

Ancient biographers' assessment of Alexander the Great is strikingly different from that of his modern biographers. For in our age, we tend think that heroism is a mere cover for self-interest.  Continue Reading »

Christians today are effectively living in partibus infidelium—in formerly Christian lands where infidels now press toward a future world we Christians can’t share. Continue Reading »

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 »