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Homesick for Eternity

In 2018, Barack Obama urged his Facebook followers to read Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick Deneen. We live, Obama said, in a time of “increasing disillusionment with the liberal democratic order.” He traced this disillusionment to a trend that liberal democracies ignore at their own . . . . Continue Reading »

Letters

I read with much interest Bruce D. Marshall’s “No Liberal Home” (­August/September). I applaud his invocation of St. Augustine’s doctrine of the two cities, reminding us that our heavenly home is not identical to any earthly regime—even one as relatively welcoming as our liberal . . . . Continue Reading »

Forged in Fire

Among secularists, Christianity is associated with intolerance, largely because its attitudes toward sex do not square with the progressive status quo. But Christianity’s reputation for intolerance can be traced back to the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, and to public intellectuals such . . . . Continue Reading »

The Virtue of Prudence

In The Four Cardinal Virtues, Josef Pieper writes, “That is prudent which is in keeping with reality.” Moral principles and good intentions amount to little if pursued blindly. Action on behalf of the good requires accurate perception of concrete ­situations and circumstances. Drawing upon . . . . Continue Reading »

Liberalism as Luxury

Adam Gopnik is the New Yorker columnist notorious for comparing the post-9/11 scent of death in lower Manhattan to that of “smoked mozzarella.” His ­editor, David Remnick, has been forced to defend Gopnik’s myopic interest in “bourgeois pleasures.” Now, as cultural institutions . . . . Continue Reading »

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