First Things RSS Feed - Scott Yenor https://www.firstthings.com/author/scott-yenor en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:56:55 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/scott-yenor 60 Fraternity Against the Great Domestication https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/04/fraternity-against-the-great-domestication https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/04/fraternity-against-the-great-domestication Fri, 05 Apr 2024 06:00:00 -0400 Sometime in 2023, a local chapter meeting of the Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR) closed amid laughter, toasts, and handshakes between future business partners. Earlier in the evening, over a meal, three members had exchanged information on an important urban development hearing that hadn’t been covered in the local press. One member gained a godfather for his newborn son; another secured a valuable internship for his teenage son; yet another obtained a second opinion on an institutional matter from an expert in the subject. Such fruitful evenings are common among the members of the fraternal organization we helped found, proving the worthiness of its ongoing mission.

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]]> Compulsory Feminism https://www.firstthings.com/article/2024/03/compulsory-feminism https://www.firstthings.com/article/2024/03/compulsory-feminism Fri, 01 Mar 2024 00:00:00 -0500 For a long time, what Alexis de Tocqueville called the American “spirit of freedom” was balanced by settled norms that guided young men and women toward domestic life. These norms added up to a sexual constitution that rested on the foundational assumption that men and women had different and complementary roles. Tocqueville recognized that this constitution, which emphasized the virtues of restraint, service, and obedience in marriage, tempered America’s otherwise fissiparous individualism.

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]]> Anti-Natal Engineering https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/05/anti-natal-engineering https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/05/anti-natal-engineering Mon, 01 May 2023 00:00:00 -0400 Birth rates in South Korea are cratering. That country’s birth dearth demonstrates that men and women can lose the taste for family life, for one another, and for posterity. The sexual urge, a part of our natural makeup, has been deprioritized and detached from procreation. Instinct is no match for a culture of barrenness. And this culture, a novelty in the history of the human race, is likely to have extraordinary social and political consequences. What will life be like when a growing plurality of men and ­women have no children, not because of war or famine, but amid unprecedented material abundance?

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]]> Anatomy of a Cancellation https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/01/anatomy-of-a-cancellation https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/01/anatomy-of-a-cancellation Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500 I t all began at the National Conservatism conference in Orlando on Halloween 2021. I spoke on family decline and what to do about it. For generations, conservatives have tried to promote the interests of families while respecting the goals of feminists and sexual liberationists. “Compassionate conservatism,” the approach was eventually called. Family decline has only accelerated since conservatives acquiesced in this peace treaty.

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]]> Parental Rights and Their Limits https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/05/parental-rights-and-their-limits https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/05/parental-rights-and-their-limits Tue, 10 May 2022 09:00:00 -0400 In America, parental rights protect the right of mothers and fathers to use legitimate discretion in raising their children. The government does not allocate parental rights; it recognizes and protects them as reflecting preexisting, nonpolitical relationships between parents and children. An alternative system, based around children’s rights, is common in much of the Western world; under this model, the state determines what is in the best interests of the child.

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]]> Lose the Culture, Lose the Family https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/10/lose-the-culture-lose-the-family https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/10/lose-the-culture-lose-the-family Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:00:00 -0400 Many factors influence decisions to marry and have children: prevailing religious commitments, ideas of beauty and honor, vanity, hope or confidence in the future, the cost of having children, the willingness to bear burdens. A country’s sexual ecosystem—the network of opinions, manners, and laws that shape a people’s attitude toward marriage—also affects how many people marry and how (and even whether) they become mothers and fathers. We cannot take marriage and family life for granted in a society that does not honor either.   

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]]> Sexual Counter-Revolution https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/11/sexual-counter-revolution https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/11/sexual-counter-revolution Mon, 01 Nov 2021 00:00:00 -0400 Planned Parenthood recently distributed flyers at ­Stewart Middle School in Tacoma, Washington. The flyers targeted eleven-­year-olds, informing them that they could have sex with anyone under the age of thirteen, and that their parents were not ­entitled to determine whether they took birth control or were tested for sexually transmitted ­diseases. The kids could make up their own minds.

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]]> Lament for the Nations https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/06/lament-for-the-nations https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/06/lament-for-the-nations Mon, 21 Jun 2021 06:00:00 -0400 Multiculturalism in Canada:
Constructing a Model Multiculture with Multicultural Values
by hugh donald forbes
palgrave macmillan, 317 pages, $59.99

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]]> The Virtue of Jealousy https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/04/the-virtue-of-jealousy https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/04/the-virtue-of-jealousy Thu, 01 Apr 2021 00:00:00 -0400 Jealousy is often confused with envy. Envy is coveting something someone else possesses. It is one of the deadliest corrosives on the human soul, as it suggests that we should not be content with what we have. Jealousy, in contrast, bespeaks a desire to hold on to what one has. Though often disparaged as a vice, jealousy guards many virtues and good practices. Jealousy can be excessively narrow and demanding, but a soul incapable of jealousy is likely to fail to maintain valuable human goods.

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]]> The Next Frontier in the Sexual Revolution https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/09/the-next-frontier-in-the-sexual-revolution https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/09/the-next-frontier-in-the-sexual-revolution Thu, 24 Sep 2020 06:00:00 -0400 What if the sexual revolution is not even half over? Sexual revolutionaries have had many victories since the 1960s, but they have not yet fulfilled their greatest ambitions. Promoting childhood sexuality will bring them closer to their goal.

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