Conservatives and EnvironmentalistsrnAllies, Not Enemiesrnby John C. Vinson, Jr.rnConservatives and environmentalists generally have asrnmuch in common as the Hatfields and McCoys. Environmentalistsrnlike to point to the career of conservative JamesrnWatt and the comment of Ronald Reagan that once you’vernseen one redwood you’ve seen them all. Most conservatives, onrnthe other hand, view environmentalists as sentimental antimodernistsrnwho...
3068 search results for: American+Religion
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The Enigmatic Professor Strauss, Part II
One can safely claim that Leo Strauss was an enigmatic man, since he prided himself on being enigmatic. He raised the art of double-talk to the dignity of a requisite for any serious philosophizing: For him, it took stupidity or insignificance for a (self-proclaimed) philosopher to be able to afford to write or speak in...
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The Primacy of Privacy
People forget, in an age of promotion, self-promotion, publicity, advertising, the internet, and social media, that personal privacy is essential not only to civility but to civilization. Today, as never before in history, the maintenance of privacy depends on the moral fortitude to resist intrusion by others and the self-restraint and tact not to intrude...
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Good Manners, Good Literature
For this very welcome and unexpected award, I thank The Ingersoll Foundation and all concerned. When I was in high school, there were certain books that I carried around in order to impress people with my literariness. One was the Collected Poems of Hart Crane, whom I didn’t altogether understand, but whose words made me...
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Muslim Murder in London
Last May, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, two Muslim converts, both Christian apostates, deliberately ran down an off-duty British soldier, Lee Rigby, in their automobile on a main street in the London suburb of Woolwich. In front of eyewitnesses, they then repeatedly stabbed him and tried to behead him with a machete. Their trial and...
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Obscurely Called: Richard Wilbur at Eighty
Now nearly 80 years of age, Richard Wilbur has recently published Mayflies, a new book of poems and translations. This slim volume has attracted slight—and sometimes slighting—notice in most literary publications. America’s poetry establishment does not quite know what to make of its former poet laureate. For half a century, this eminent translator of 17th-...
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Eastern Europe Versus the Open Society
Excerpts from a speech to the H.L. Mencken Club, Baltimore, October 23, 2010 Two weeks ago the first “gay pride parade” was staged in Belgrade. Serbia’s “pro-European” government had been promoting the event as yet another proof that Serbia is fit to join the European Union, that is has overcome the legacy of its...
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Cultural Revolutions
aration of Church and State is not arndogma.rnSantamaria’s role in the Labor Part)’rnsplit made him a household name,rnhailed or reviled, but rarely ignored.rnWlien Rome responded to his foes in thernCatholic hierarchy, he could no longerrnwork within official Church structures.rnThe Catholic Social Movement hernheaded was transformed into the independentrnNational Civic Council. Thisrnthink tank eventually included people...
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The Crime of History
He who writes a nation’s history also controls its future—so wrote George Orwell. During the Soviet reign over Eastern Europe, every citizen knew who was in charge of writing history, especially that dealing with the victims of World War II. Anyone professing to be a Slovak, a Croat, a Ukrainian, or a Russian nationalist was...
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A Calvinist in Gotham
In the early 50’s, Philip Graham of the Washington Post tried to hire James Reston away from the New York Times at twice the coins the Sulzbergers were dispensing. Thanks, but no thanks, Reston said-and kept saying whenever his friend Graham sought to renew the discussion. The Times family was James Reston’s family, professionally speaking....
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Music: Truth Through the Art of Riff
derision against it would certainly backfire.nLife of Brian, which artistically isnan assemblage of mostly dull, franticallynnoisy and underdeveloped skits, tries tonMusicnTruth Through the Art of RiffnJosef Skvorecky: The Bass Saxophone;nAlfred A. Knopf; New York.nby Douglas A. RamseynIt is possible, although I have seennno serious defense of the idea, that thenrecent defections to the United Statesnfrom...
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The Enigmatic Professor Strauss, Part II
Where are today’s Platos and Aristotles? On this question, for once, Strauss announces that he “won’t beat around the bush in any respect”—and, actually, he doesn’t. As he states flatly: “Since a very, very early time, the main theme of my reflections has been what is called the Jewish question.” His interest does not stem...
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The Puritanism That Dare Not Speak Its Name
of the ceaseless competition to find ever more stringent restrictionsrnto place upon the smoker, to go as far as possible inrnthe direction of outright prohibition without actually banningrneither the substance or its use. And while amazed at thernfrankness with which this generation discusses condoms andrn”safe sex,” the time-traveler would also note the presumptionrnthat virtually any...
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Looking Backwards
“Whose picture is this, Daddy?” The little blond girl is 11 years old, and, as she flips through the iScraps, her smooth round face shows the first twinge of the questioning mind that will disturb the complacency on which all future happiness depends. “That’s my grandfather.” “Your grandfather? He doesn’t look a bit like us,”...
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Who Needs the Historical Jesus?
Who Needs the Historical Jesus?rnby Jacob Neusnerrn”Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.”rn—Hebrews 13:8rnA Marginal Jew: Rethinking thernHistorical Jesusrnby John P. MeierrnNew York: Doubleday;rn484 pp., $28.00rnThe Historical Jesus: The Life of arnMediterranean Jewish Peasantrnby ]ohn Dominic CrossanrnSan Francisco: Harper;rn507 pp., $30.00rnIhave never heard of a book about “thernhistorical Moses,” and while philosophersrnstudy the thought...
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Cultural Revolutions
Mr. McDonaldrnReplies:rnMr. Graham repeats the myth that Canadarnwas confederated in 1867 as two peoplesrnin a bilingual nation. Then PrimernMinister Sir John A. Macdonald called itrn”the Confederation of one people andrnone government instead of five peoplesrnand five governments.” Constitutionalrnauthority Senator Eugene Forsey saidrnthat “[Canada] was certainly not intendedrnto be two political nations. Over andrnover again the...
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Antimodernism as Cultural Hegemony
ists on common grounds. For both herenand in Europe, sensitive individuals ofnthe late 19th and early 20th centuries experiencedna malaise, a feeling of overcivilization,na loss of vitality, a spiritual sterilitynand the emptiness of a “weightlessnculture.” It is the expression of thesenmoods that Lears pursues in his study. Henis careful to note the idiomatic qualitiesnof this...
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Sympathy for the Devil
His writing these last 40 years amounts to little more than a succession of malicious ad hominem attacks on people he disagrees with. His appeal is to those with a dirty mind, who want society to be as dirty as he is, and who are glad to erode barriers of decency. There is a coy...