Go back in your mind’s eye to the fall of 1940, the fateful period that Winston Churchill called Britain’s “finest hour.” Having subdued the Low Countries and France, Adolf Hitler now turned his attention to the last remaining democratic power in Europe. Hermann Göring convinced Hitler . . . . Continue Reading »
It is a truth seldom acknowledged that the most delightful art is also the most didactic. Jane Austen comes readily to mind, as does the best of children’s literature. Supposed counterexamples only prove the rule. Oscar Wilde is celebrated for his dictum that “bad art is always sincere,” but . . . . Continue Reading »
Murderous cruise missiles crash into factories, office buildings, farm houses, all just across the border in Serbia, while on the other side of the frontier twelve million Hungarians stare apprehensively into their television sets thinking, “There but for the grace of God goes Hungary.” Yet, . . . . Continue Reading »
It was the issue of abortion that taught me to be suspicious of the word “reform.” It was the early 1960s and all right-minded people were in favor of “abortion reform.” I assumed I should be too until it gradually dawned on me, slow learner that I was, that people speaking of abortion . . . . Continue Reading »
Modernity and Crises of Identity: Culture and Society in Fin-de-Siecle Vienna by jacques le rider translated by rosemary morris continuum, 380 pages, $34.95 To the best of my knowledge, no one has yet compared the Vienna of Freud’s time with Periclean Athens; but if it ever happens, I will . . . . Continue Reading »
The story is told of a young student from an exotic place, a colonial dependency of Britain, who was suddenly delivered to Oxford University. The word soon got about that the tradition of cannibalism had not been perfectly extinguished in this young man's tribe, and a certain concern was registered, . . . . Continue Reading »
What really happened in the 1992 presidential election? And what does it tell us about American politics at the turn of the century? Although postmortems are always a tricky business, interpreting the 1992 election is particularly so. The defeat of an incumbent President, the election of the first . . . . Continue Reading »
“RE-imagining,” a conference “by women for women and men,” marked the midpoint of the World Council of Churches’ “Decade in Solidarity with Women.” Held last November 4-7 at the Minneapolis Convention Center, the conference drew 2,200 participants from forty-nine states and . . . . Continue Reading »
Chicago's financial district and the seat of its city government are only a few blocks apart, yet they belong to two different worlds. I learned this in my first few months of law practice in 1964 when, as low person on the totem pole, I had to handle routine motions in both state and federal . . . . Continue Reading »
Most Christian thinkers have viewed evil as a privation, a derivative reality, like a shadow. Shadows are privations of light; they are real things, but dependent on the bodies that cast the shadows. They are darkness where light should have been. Similarly evil, a secondary reality, is only the . . . . Continue Reading »
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