R. R. Reno

Samuel Gregg offers a thoughtful assessment of my debate with Robert Miller about economic freedom: its effects and prospects. Gregg is certainly right to point out that we need a moral argument for capitalism, not just a utilitarian one. The fact that it produces wealth is a good thing. But . . . . Continue Reading »

We are not suffering from significant threats to economic freedom and capitalism. Instead, our political challenges mostly flow from the triumph of capitalism. And American conservatism is in trouble because it can’t acknowledge much less respond to this fact. These are two admittedly sweeping claims, and Robert Miller thinks I’m mistaken about both… . Continue Reading »

Pamela Fox makes really cool stuff. So says Tessa Miller on  Life Hacker , a website the “curates [web-speak for exercising editorial judgment] tips, tricks, and technology for living better in the digital age.” I’m sure that’s true, about Pamela I mean. But she’s more . . . . Continue Reading »

Pope Francis Un ersatz: a phony. That’s how, the day after the papal election, Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky described the new pope in Página/12, a leading progressive paper in Buenos Aires. It’s a striking charge, one made in anger and with a certain bitterness. We do well to pay . . . . Continue Reading »

Karl Rahner was once the figure to be reckoned with. When, at the very outset of the Second Vatican Council, the gathered bishops rejected the schema on revelation prepared in advance by the Holy Office, they signaled the end of the presumptive authority of neoscholastic theology over the . . . . Continue Reading »

Poet George Green isn’t somebody I’d want to meet in the Muse’s dark alley. If his wonderful new book of poetry, Lord Byron’s Foot , is any indication, he swings a mean verbal broadsword. Here’s a short poem. It’s part of a series titled “Warhol’s . . . . Continue Reading »

We live with interesting dissonances. For example, it’s fascinating that young people now accept economic discipline with little protest. That’s something I wouldn’t have predicted when I was in college when people still worried about being imprisoned in what Weber called the . . . . Continue Reading »

We live in an era of unparalleled economic freedom. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, free markets have ruled without much in the way of resistance. As a consequence, for the most part our political problems now involve coming to terms with the global triumph of capitalism… . Continue Reading »

We’re in the midst of a big shift, no doubt. Check out this report from the Nation : “ NHL Takes ‘Historic Step’ for LGBT Equality .” The piece speaks of sports as a bulwark of “heteronormative socialization,” with the implicit suggestion that this, like . . . . Continue Reading »

In a very fine article in the American Conservative, ” Sex After Christianity ,” Rod Dreher explains how the growing support for gay marriage reflect deep and profound changes in our moral imaginations. He writes, correctly I think, that “gay-marriage proponents succeeded so . . . . Continue Reading »