If someone were to tell you that you are a very enthusiastic person, how insulted would you be? Not at all? That is curious. “For Inspiration is a real feeling of the Divine Presence, and Enthusiasm a False one.” That is from “A Letter concerning ENTHUSIASM” by Anthony, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. It was the first essay in his Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, a book, it is fair to say, of which very few people even know its existence, let alone have read it. Yet, the book, … [Read more...] about Feeling Enthusiastic?
Modern Society
Drinking Deeply from The Breakfast of Champions
On the cover of a book sitting on my desk right now there is a picture of St Augustine painted by Justus van Gent in the 15th century. On a book cover on the other side of my desk there is a pentagon, with a smaller pentagon in it, which has an image that I think is two people reading books, but it is hard to tell. A third book has a copy of a Claude Lorrain (17th century) painting, Imaginary View of Delphi with a Procession. I haven’t read this third book yet. And so on. Nothing in that … [Read more...] about Drinking Deeply from The Breakfast of Champions
Where Have All the Novels Gone?
“Over lunch one day, the wonderful magazine-essayist Andrew Ferguson gave me what he called the Cocktail Party Test for new books: Would you be embarrassed to show up at a get-together of writers and public-intellectual types without having read it? And the last novel he could remember for which that seemed true was Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities in 1987.” Joseph Bottum relates that anecdote in The Decline of the Novel. (Bottum goes on to note the same thing is true of poetry, opera, … [Read more...] about Where Have All the Novels Gone?
Revisiting Chesterton and The Mystery of Capital
My latest essay at Public Discourse:There is a curious strain of recent conservative thought that laments the workings of the American economic system. The iconic example of the problem is the closing of a factory: it removes the lifeblood of a community and inevitably causes the breakdown of the community and its families. The villain is the factory owner, generally portrayed as a rapacious soul: he lives in comfort and heartlessly tosses hardworking people onto the street. Why? Merely in … [Read more...] about Revisiting Chesterton and The Mystery of Capital
Learning Goals and Oakeshott
In an old brick building, an aging Doctor of Philosophy shares knowledge acquired over a lifetime with a dozen young scholars just setting out on their own intellectual journeys. That is the image of higher education. It is also one of the many fatalities in the Age of Covid. Not everyone is mourning its passing, however. One of the byproducts of the move to on-line education is the triumph of the College Bureaucrats in their guerrilla war for control of the classroom. There is a serious danger … [Read more...] about Learning Goals and Oakeshott
Physics in a Flash
“Faster than the streak of the lightning in the sky…Swifter than the speed of the light itself…Fleeter than the rapidity of thought…is The Flash.” That’s pretty fast. And it presents certain…problems. The Flash was born in 1940 with that opening declaration. Jay Garrick had a nifty metal helmet with wings on the side and he could run really really really fast. Not fast enough to propel sales of his comic book, however. He vanished in less than a decade. Fear not, speed fans! The … [Read more...] about Physics in a Flash