Aside from his inability, or unwillingness, to recognize that the denial of legal protection to human beings because of their age, size, dependency, or location (for example, in the womb) undercuts the foundation of human rights and the liberal democracy erected on that foundation, William Saletan, . . . . Continue Reading »
Recently there was a conference here at Princeton entitled "Retracing the Expanded Field." The theme was a reconsideration of an influential 1979 essay "Sculpture in the Expanded Field" in October ( October being, in this case, an influential left-leaning journal, not a month). . . . . Continue Reading »
Amnesty International is up to no good, and they don’t want you to know about it.My friend Richard Stith, professor of law at Valparaiso University, first drew my attention to the issue on the Mirror of Justice blog about a year ago. Richard, a member of Amnesty International (AI) and . . . . Continue Reading »
G.K. Chesterton’s Fr. Brown stories are proof that only the British style of detective fiction can reach to religion¯or so, at least, a friend recently claimed. W.H. Auden’s great essay on the Christian origins of the mystery story came into the argument somewhere, as I recall, . . . . Continue Reading »
On February 1, I joined perhaps a thousand other mourners in St. Aloysius Church in Washington for the funeral of the Reverend Robert F. Drinan, S.J. Among those eulogizing Fr. Drinan, who represented Massachusetts in Congress from 1971 to 1981, was Sen. Edward Kennedy. He was one of several . . . . Continue Reading »
Herewith a couple of items from a forthcoming installment of "The Public Square" in First Things , plus Mark Sargent’s important article on the distortion of the quest for justice. Odium theologicum ¯the ill-feeling and nasty polemics to which theological controversy can give . . . . Continue Reading »
Last Friday, the Philadelphia Inquirer published the Tony Auth cartoon below.Apparently referring to the fact that the five Supreme Court justices who voted last week in Gonzales v. Carhart to uphold the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 are all Catholics, Mr. Auth’s point seems to be . . . . Continue Reading »
I don’t think many would dispute that Philip Rieff was one of the most perceptive and creative intellectuals of the second half of the twentieth century. His justly famous 1959 Freud: The Mind of the Moralist has never gone out of print, and rightly so, because it remains the definitive . . . . Continue Reading »
Sooner or later, every teacher hears the same old joke about the philosophy student and his dad. The dad asks, “Son, what are you going to do with that goofy degree?” And the son says, “I’m going to open a philosophy shop and make big money selling ideas.” I smile every time I hear it, . . . . Continue Reading »
On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first black man to play major-league baseball, as the Dodgers beat the Boston Braves 5-3 over in Brooklyn. The sixtieth anniversary of that event was a little over a week ago, when fitting commemorations were held in ballparks across the continent.We . . . . Continue Reading »
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