Support First Things by turning your adblocker off or by making a  donation. Thanks!

Why China Loves Conservatives

Conservatives in the West see in the People’s Republic of China a daunting nemesis: an oppressive tech dystopia ruled by a Leninist party that negates conservatism’s attachment to civil society, Christianity, and individual liberties. You might expect the intellectual mainstream in mainland . . . . Continue Reading »

Utopian Temptation

Why Liberalism Failedby patrick j. deneenyale, 248 pages, $30 Patrick Deneen asserts that liberalism has failed. He also asserts (in a recent article) that “the exceedingly narrow victory of Donald Trump may be understood as the last gasp of a dying conservatism that has been destroyed by American . . . . Continue Reading »

Paradise Possible

When exactly did utopia become less interesting than dystopia? The vision of a grim and gray future is just as much a fantasy as that of a perfectly ordered society, but somehow it is the grim one that now captures our attention. The descriptions of a glistening City of the Sun or a New Atlantis . . . . Continue Reading »

The Age of Concentration

Many regard Russia as backward, lagging behind the West. This is not so. Our shared civilization is changing, and because of our raw experience of the twentieth century, my country is in some respects ahead of the West. I have described the coming epoch as a new medievalism (“The New Middle . . . . Continue Reading »

While We’re At It

♦ Early in July, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia issued a set of guidelines for implementing Pope Francis’s ­apostolic exhortation on marriage and family, Amoris Laetitia. The document urges the Church’s pastors to recognize that Catholics ­today are often profoundly misled by the prevailing . . . . Continue Reading »

Suffering Humanity

It is not hard to imagine the common sense reaction to the news that a distinguished historian had attempted to cover the history of human suffering in a little over two hundred pages. What have humans ever thought, done, or made that is not directly or indirectly involved with suffering in one or . . . . Continue Reading »

Filter Tag Articles