Michael Dirda of the New Criterion takes a fresh look at mid-century British poet Philip Larkin. Dirda finds much to admire in Larkin’s writing and personality, including his awareness of the growth of secularism and hedonism in the culture at large, his daring rejection of literary modernism . . . . Continue Reading »
Paul Ryan has famously (or infamously ?) claimed that the budget he proposed for the next fiscal year is a product of his encounter with Roman Catholic social teaching . The bishop who heads the USCCB committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development disagrees : As pastors and . . . . Continue Reading »
Mark Misulia reviews Jesse Bering’s The Belief Instinct : Bering argues that our proto-human ancestors were unselfconsciously “impulsive, hedonistic, and uninhibited.” But sooner or later humans recognized that they were capable of and subject to judgment. In time, the reproductive . . . . Continue Reading »
I marvel at how the supposed defenders of SCIENCE so often conflate the method with ethical and policy controversies. Case in point: A Yale law professor named Adam Cohen, writing at the Time website, is upset that Tennessee is allowing teachers to (voluntarily) teach their students . . . . Continue Reading »
John McWhorter, writing in the New York Times , defends the new, casual modes of communication: In an earlier America, then, one could hear speeches like William Jennings Bryan’s floridly oratorical, carefully written “ Cross of Gold” speech given at the Democratic National . . . . Continue Reading »
The Public Religion Research Institute and Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs recently released results of their 2012 survey of “millennials.” “Millennials” are young adults between the ages of 18 and 24. The report . . . . Continue Reading »
Carson Holloway, writing for Public Discourse, urges libertarians and conservatives to work together against what he diagnoses as their common enemy, egalitarian liberalism. Where laws are legislated in favor of progressive interests, but framed in the language of repairing oppressive injustice, . . . . Continue Reading »
Among Thorns Brad Miner, The Catholic Thing In Quest of Intellectual Community Eric Miller, Books & Culture The First Lady of Fleet Street Susan Hertog, Jewish Ideas Daily A Question Science Will Never Answer John Horgan, Scientific American Life After Television . . . . Continue Reading »
So Ross Douthat has a new book which speaks of heresy. I am glad he uses this term—heresy—and he is quite sophisticated in his understanding of the issue. Both Hegel and Kierkegaard spoke of the important role of heresy in the development of the Christian doctrine, and Douthat too seems . . . . Continue Reading »
James Lovelock, the radical environmentalist who came up with the idea that the Earth is a living organism, has poured cold water on his own previously raging global warming hysteria. From the MSNBC story:James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the . . . . Continue Reading »
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