Let’s start with a quick quiz. Name this book:The United States is in great peril because it has abandoned its Christian roots and is being taken over by people who are immersed in a humanistic worldview which is antithetical to God. The result will be a tyranny which will oppress Good Christians everywhere. Trick question, obviously. There are thousands of books fitting that description. Even more books fitting that description will be published in the next six months. And the six months … [Read more...] about Battle Cry in the Culture War
Great Books
SMITH’S MAN OF SYSTEM IN ROMEO AND JULIET
The biggest threats to liberty always come from people who look at the world and become firmly convinced that their plan to overhaul the whole system will bring great joy. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith argues that such people will inevitably bring harm to society. In Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare has provided a marvelous example of such a person, exploring both the motivation and the devastation which ensues. Friar Laurence may rank with Iago and Edmund in the roll … [Read more...] about SMITH’S MAN OF SYSTEM IN ROMEO AND JULIET
The Complaint of Peace
“As Peace, am I not praised by both men and gods as the very source and defender of all good things?…Though nothing is more odious to God and harmful to man, yet it is incredible to see the tremendous expenditure of work and effort that intelligent beings put forth in an effort to exchange me for a heap of ruinous evils.” (Erasmus, The Complaint of Peace, 1517, Dolan translation) A few years after Erasmus personified Folly in his most famous work, The Praise of Folly, he went back to … [Read more...] about The Complaint of Peace
Is Socrates Being Ironic in The Republic?
"Unless...the philosophers rule as kings or those now called kings and chiefs genuinely and adequately philosophize, and political power and philosophy coincide in the same place, while the many natures now making their way to either apart from the other are by necessity excluded, there is no rest from ills for the cities my dear Glaucon, nor I think for humankind, nor will the regime we have now described in speech ever come forth from nature, insofar as possible, and see the light of the … [Read more...] about Is Socrates Being Ironic in The Republic?
The Praise of Folly
“If someone should attempt to take off the masks and costumes of the actors in a play and show to the audience their real appearances, would he not ruin the whole play?… For what else is the life of man but a kind of play in which men in various costumes perform until the director motions them off the stage.” (The Praise of Folly, Dolan translation)Published in 1511, The Praise of Folly is the best known book written by Erasmus, a priest from Rotterdam. Saying it is his most famous book is no … [Read more...] about The Praise of Folly
Reading as a Spiritual Practice
"Until very recent years, civilized folk took it for granted that literature exists to form the normative consciousness: that is, to teach human beings their true nature, their dignity, and their rightful place in the scheme of things. Such has been the end of poetry—in the larger sense of that word—ever since Job and Homer.” Since Russell Kirk wrote these words in 1977, matters have drifted further from this ideal. Jessica Hooten Wilson is disturbed by the state of reading, particularly … [Read more...] about Reading as a Spiritual Practice