Stefan McDaniel

Last night I was at a party full of ornery conservatives. At some point the conversation turned to the French, which allowed us to take a break from discursive thought and indulge in the ritual France-baiting that is practically an American bodily function. We finished on an appropriately . . . . Continue Reading »

The ever-lively and independent Mark Shea explains his refusal to vote for either major presidential candidate thus : Millions of babies will be killed whichever of these guys is elected. One will zealously try to make sure the maximum number die in sacrifice to the Culture of Adult Desire. The . . . . Continue Reading »

Upon the occasion of Zimbabwe’s independence, Bob Marley wrote a song unimaginatively titled “Zimbabwe.” Marley may not have been the sage many of his fans take him for, but Zimbabwe’s post-independence decline into bloody tyranny makes these lines from the song seem . . . . Continue Reading »

A great comfort to many of my socially liberal interlocutors in college bull-sessions was the seemingly inevitable leftward drift of Western Europe, reflected in the increasing permissiveness of elected officials across the political spectrum. But The Economist says that Britain’s Tories may . . . . Continue Reading »

First Things is pretty cool, but The Onion is quite simply the greatest magazine in America. . . . . Continue Reading »

Heavy-handed didacticism is the great danger that all religious artists must fear, because it compromises art and renders faith no great service. Our beloved Flannery O’Connor avoided this danger admirably. In most of her stories, ‘Christianity’ is either absent or repulsive, yet . . . . Continue Reading »

Britain has long been a reliable ally of the United States, but Britons are far from immune to the anti-Americanism that pervades Europe. Many patriotic Americans are likely to think that this attitude must come from some combination of envy and wrongheaded ideology, but a poll commissioned by . . . . Continue Reading »

In keeping with our journal’s spirit of unremitting morbidity , I spent this past Saturday morning in a graveyard. This was no ordinary graveyard, mind you, but Princeton Cemetery , which has been called the “Westminster Abbey of the United States.” Dozens of luminaries, including . . . . Continue Reading »

A couple of months ago, assistant editor Nathaniel Peters linked to an article in the Atlantic which made the disturbing suggestion that what you are doing right now is making you stupider. Nathaniel didn’t think that he, at least, had suffered much: Since coming to First Things, I’ve . . . . Continue Reading »

Most people I interact with, whatever their stated moral views, seem so basically sane, sensible, and decent that I’ve lately begun to wonder whether cultural conservatives exaggerate when they proclaim a national decline into everlasting adolescence. But then again, no. While waiting for the . . . . Continue Reading »