Okay, heres a shorter way, for those of you who havent the patience for my full cinemascopic link-littered prose, to get at what I mean by Intermediate Modernity In Book VIII Republic terms, intermediate-modernity was the era of the self-repressing Oligarchic Soul, and the . . . . Continue Reading »
Heres the basic schema I laid out in #26 : 1) quasi-modernity approximately 1776 to 1918 2) intermediate modernity approximately 1919 to 1965 3) full modernity approximately 1966 to the present. Now, for some flesh upon these analytic bones. Everyone knows WWI and the 20s . . . . Continue Reading »
The Songbook inevitably has to analyze modernity, precisely because it is interested more in what rock reveals about our overall sociological and spiritual situation than it is in rock itself. So what follows are two organizing posts concerning this. Here, Ill quickly lay out my . . . . Continue Reading »
For the seventh Songbook entry, its time for sounds that remind us of, or at least make us long for, Gods goodness. Here are two pieces I can recommend unequivocally as fine music, one initially composed without words, from the jazz tradition but veering into the classical, and another . . . . Continue Reading »
Chris Dierkes at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen has a thoughtful post up contesting Sir Edward Downes’ son’s description of his parents’ decision to undergo voluntary euthanization as “a very civilized act”. This passage was perhaps the most interesting: All Im . . . . Continue Reading »
Here are a couple of excerpts from a brilliant decoding of Balzac’s esotericism, accomplished by Scott Sprenger, a colleague of mine at BYU. Consider the applications to the analysis of Straussianism, and to a post-Straussian postmodern critique of modernity: The fundamental problem that . . . . Continue Reading »
I commute to work on the NYC subway system every day, a routine no longer subject to the provisions enumerated in the UN Convention Against Torture owing to a jurisdiction dispute. One of the ways the Transit Authority mollifies those of us trapped into favoring it with our custom is to post . . . . Continue Reading »
We are living at a time near the end of the world. Not that our age is apocalyptic: apocalypse means an uncovering, a revelation, and revelation is what we lack. And not that our age is eschatological: eschatology means the discourse, reason, science, the logos of last things, and all that . . . . Continue Reading »
The Anatomy of Antiliberalismby stephen holmes harvard university press, 330 pages, $29.95 As the 1990s bring us the recrudescence of many unfulfilled progressive enthusiasms from the 1970s, we may begin to understand that the intervening Reagan decade was indeed an exceptional period of . . . . Continue Reading »
In recent years the poorer regions of the earth have been swept by a “population revolution” which, though it has attracted comparatively little attention, is nevertheless both unprecedented and pregnant with consequences for the peoples of the countries affected. This “revolution” has been . . . . Continue Reading »