MF: Mr. Chesterton, I know you have not received any training in economics at the University level. So, I will keep this simple. The world today, and throughout human history, attests to the fact that countries are made great by allowing individuals to pursue their own personal … | Continue reading
Distributism as a Problem When people think of Distributism, even people who know a little about it, they tend to see it as something problematic, something more akin to agrarianism and a naïve nostalgia for a rural past, a search for a “golden age” that never existed. In this, | Continue reading
I’ll be taking a break from the internet for a couple of weeks to recreate (and to get some writing done). I’m not sure when I’ll resume these weekly Water Dipper posts, but it will likely be the beginning of August. In the meantime, feel free to email me any | Continue reading
We live in a time of political disruption. In the United States and around the developed world we are seeing nationalist and populist agitation against the established liberal order. While this is a cause of anxiety, it is also a moment of great opportunity. There seems to be bot … | Continue reading
Jake Meador’s In Search of the Common Good: Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World is a remarkably successful attempt to bring together the core teachings of Christianity and the community-centered practices of an economic life less dependent on global capitalism. | Continue reading
The dark side of religion cannot be completely vanquished because human reason pales in the comparison to the highest reality, which is known through the light and the darkness of the religious experience. | Continue reading
“Book Review: Dignity by Chris Arnade.” Jake Meador uses Patrick Deneen’s recent work to frame a reading of Arnade’s photographs and stories. In a book that does not shy away from pain and darkness, Jake finds glimpses of the heavenly city for which we long.“Oh, the Places We’ll … | Continue reading
Our lives depend upon the restoration of intergenerational stability within our local communities as a norm that is loved and nurtured. Moreover, our recent obsession with measures such as GDP not only undermines our own wellbeing but threatens our relationship with our entire co … | Continue reading
Place was also indispensable to our friendship whether we realized it or not. For all our determination to be malcontents, we did secretly love our home. | Continue reading
In “The Dreams of Mrs. Flintwinch thicken,” a short chapter of Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit (1857), the kind-hearted Arthur Clennam visits his childhood home. “Oppressive secrets” pervade the crumbling house and its London neighborhood. The night engulfs Clennam in a sense of o … | Continue reading
“The Politics of Dystopia.” Ross Douthat seems to be thinking about Deneen’s book these days: “On right and left, it has become easier to imagine ways the liberal order might deserve to fall, because of evils generated from within itself.”“Conservative Women and the Intra-Conserv … | Continue reading
Christ the Heart of Creation renders fruitful the richness in, and the virtue of, the Christological grammar that rules faithful speech and thought about the person and nature of Jesus Christ. | Continue reading
I came to the work of Chris Arnade through his work documenting the social capital of McDonald’s around the United States. In his photos and captions I saw a glimpse of a world I had grown accustomed to: the chaotic and welcoming de-facto community centers springing up in the sha … | Continue reading
The official scorekeeper for my sixth-grade baseball team was our catcher’s mom. Sometimes she couldn’t be there, and it would fall to our coach to keep score. Sometimes he didn’t feel like doing it, in which case it would be up to me and my teammates.I have only vague memories | Continue reading
In high school, I had a friend who simply loathed Michael Stipe. This was in the late nineties, at the tail end of R.E.M.’s cultural dominance, but the band was still seemingly omnipresent. “Everybody Hurts,” “Stand,” “Losing My Religion,” “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?”—these … | Continue reading
When we stop trying to be everywhere at once, we have enough time for the meaningful things. | Continue reading
One side has dominated the story while the other has tried to dominate the politics. But separating culture and politics is a self-defeating strategy. | Continue reading
“More Than Mildly Amusing.” I heartily second Elizabeth Bittner’s recommendation ofMr.Mehan’s Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals; it’s a children’s book that rewards re-readings, and the glossary combines wit and wisdom.“How Republicans Hurt the Fight Against Abortion.” Writing for … | Continue reading
Put in a garden and watch it come to life. | Continue reading
The least-discussed chapter in Patrick Deneen’s much-discussedWhy Liberalism Failedis—I would venture—“Technology and the Loss of Liberty.” Similarly, Rod Dreherhas lamentedthat relatively few readers or reviewers discuss the technology chapter inThe Benedict Option. These oversi … | Continue reading
In such times, a centripetal lurch is what we desperately need. | Continue reading
The Varsity Blues parents didn’t really care if their children learned anything; they were concerned that they got their ticket to success stamped by the right institution. | Continue reading
“Why do need to go to the Holy Land? You have an altar in your church?” | Continue reading
What is culture? What hath attachment to do with culture? Why are front porches necessary for culture? Culture is something vibrant. Something living. Something that runs through the veins of living men and women and moves them to sing songs to the sun; of praise and | Continue reading
We occupants of the Porch can profitably read Vodolazkin in light of our own concern to acknowledge human limitations and find ways to live well and more fully in our own communities. | Continue reading
In selecting reading material, the average reader might not immediately reach for a book about Congress in the nineteenth century. That would be a mistake, as Joanne Freeman’s book The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War is an historical highlight from … | Continue reading
“Don’t take my gun, Nightlife!” Tol called, trying to sound not too much concerned, and yet unable to keep the tone of pleading entirely out of his voice. “I’m liable to need it!”This dialogue begins the real action of Wendell Berry’s “Watch with Me.” Tol Proudfoot, in his garden … | Continue reading