After a teaching career of fifty years, I agree with E. D. Hirsch that the primary problem in American public education is not the high schools, but the poorly organized, ineffective elementary school curricula, including the idiotic books of childish fiction. Continue Reading »
Not very long ago, an eminent British editor tweeted an article from his own publication showing (he said) that “in the Middle Ages, some 100,000 women over Europe were burned, hanged, drowned, or put to death in other ingenious ways on suspicion of being witches.” “Three centuries of . . . . Continue Reading »
The currency of moral, political, and social philosophy, as well as other forms of abstract theorizing, is ideas. They deal not with reality as such, but with representations and explanations of it, and often with recommendations as to how reality should be arranged. Continue Reading »
Whig history is an unsound historiographic method that sees history as a predestined progression toward greater democracy and egalitarianism. Continue Reading »
Does apocalypticism about American Christianity merit more serious consideration? Hard to say, but I’m struck by the radically truncated and highly selective historical memory that seems to characterize so many accounts of our current situation. Continue Reading »
Jared Knott joins the podcast to discuss his book Tiny Blunders/Big Disasters: Thirty-Nine Tiny Mistakes That Changed the World. Continue Reading »
When we saw Ukrainians forced to pack their bags and flee their country, we knew it was time to pack our own bags and go where we were needed. Continue Reading »
Every time you see Ethiopia is still on the map, you’re seeing real-world proof of the faithfulness of God. Continue Reading »
I recently learned that Blessed Emperor Karl is not the only Habsburg on the path to sainthood; we also have a sixteenth-century archduchess who is Venerable. Continue Reading »
History, to the modern mind, has a goal and follows the path of progress, so that new becomes identified with better. It was on this basis that, a century ago in Russia, communist belief seized the moment. Typically for the progressive tradition, the word “new” acquired a magical . . . . Continue Reading »
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