EM Forster's A Passage to India captures the cultural entanglements of Britain and India during the Raj. Malcolm Forbes celebrates one hundred years of a literary masterpiece.
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We need assertive states to push the federal government back into its constitutional boundaries. READ MORE › The Warehouse Worker Who Became a Philosopher Thomas Chatterton Williams | The West's podcast, Philosophize This!, has some two million monthly listeners on Spotify and 150,000 subscribers on YouTube, and it ranks third in the country for philosophy podcasts on Apple Podcasts. Full Story As Brazil's example shows, price controls cannot solve the problems caused by lax monetary and fiscal policies.
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Uniting Faith & Culture: Hans Urs von Balthasar
By J. Peter Pham on Aug 11, 2024 02:00 pm As one awaits renewal, the figure of Hans Urs von Balthasar and the integration of faith and culture which he achieved in his life and in his work guide wayfarers in that dark night, a beacon of light pointing the way to spiritual renewal of the culture—a light, which Balthasar himself would no doubt be ... Read in browser »
Wokeness and the “Sick Animal”
Nietzsche can help us understand the phenomenon of self-abasement. / Read here
As a tradition, conservative humanism has sought to balance the parochial and the universal.
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Classical realism sees the structure of the system as important but also sees causality in decisions made by leaders steeped in history.
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Nullification emerged from the fact that neither the federal nor the state governments are sovereign. The people of the states are sovereign.
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The population of hell and the limitations of human freedom
By Larry Chapp on Apr 27, 2024 10:26 pm With the promulgation of the latest document from the DDF (Dignitas Infinita) much focus has been on the use of the word “Infinite” in the title as a qualifier for the ontological nature of human [...] Read in browser » 
The great Catholic historian Christopher Dawson notes that in the chaotic aftermath of the fall of the western Roman Empire, the liturgy kept life together.
Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths.' It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult—once we truly understand and accept it—then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters. Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species, and not upon others. I know about this moaning because I have done my share. ~M. Scott Peck
Kant’s Imperative
By Eva Brann on Apr 21, 2024 04:00 pm What makes freedom possible is beyond all knowing, but what makes the moral law possible is freedom itself. The fact that we have a faculty of freedom is the critical ground of the possibility of morality. I have called this lecture “Kant’s Imperative” so that I might begin by pointing up an ever-intriguing circumstance. Kant ... Read in browser »  
Despite centuries of persecution, some people still feel entitled to ask "What should be done with the Jews"?
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Dostoevsky for Catholics (and Everyone Else), Part I Dostoevsky represents one powerful reply to many of the cataclysmic changes that have swept modern Western civilization since the eighteenth century.Keep reading » Theodore Dalrymple Surveying the RuinsPolitical philosopher John Gray reckons with the crisis of life in the West. / Read here Be skeptical about media reports that rates of lawlessness are declining in cities. / Read here Michael Strain writes on the state of democratic capitalism in 2023 in an essay for the Georgetown University Law Center. Recent shifts in both parties’ thinking have left free-market economics and democratic capitalism standing alone amid attacks from both sides in the name of populism and nationalism. As Strain articulates, while the current climate may seem bleak, democratic capitalism remains ever strong and will continue to prosper and succeed despite constant criticism. James Pethokoukis continues this thread in his writing on the human ingenuity and hard work indicative of democratic capitalism that made possible the creation of the Western world. Pethokoukis suggests the secret to the rise of the West is the pillars of American capitalism: innovation and a radical commitment to improving the human condition. Mahdism: The Apocalyptic Ideology Behind Iran's Nuclear Program by Raymond Ibrahim The Stream December 19, 2023 https://www.meforum.org/65368/mahdism-the-apocalyptic-ideology-behind-iran Judgment and Humility, Providence and Free Will
The self-knowledge Solzhenitsyn sought is not merely an account of his own soul but of “the truth of the soul and the order of things.” READ MORE ›  The Joys of a Reflective Life What Is Wisdom? Discontent, Death, & Desolation: Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” Remember, Remember, the 9th of November By Bradley J. Birzer on Nov 08, 2023 05:00 pm Socialism did not kill merely the body—it sought to extinguish the soul and all belief in anything transcendent in the human person. As we celebrate the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is time to remember and reclaim man’s oldest faith, a faith in one Almighty God who make each of us ... Read in browser » Why Did the Berlin Wall Fall? By Barbara J. Elliott on Nov 08, 2023 04:00 pm The Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain seemed to be permanent fixtures of the political landscape of Europe after 1961. But to everyone’s surprise, the Berlin Wall opened on November 9, 1989. This stunning event triggered a chain reaction throughout Eastern Europe, accelerating a process that had begun a decade earlier. Using a little poetic ... Read in browser » George Gilder questions the fundamentals of modern economics, and sketches the contours of a new paradigm.
READ MORE › Friends of liberty must offer real alternatives for those exasperated by the growth of the state and the politicization of everything. READ MORE › The philosophy of the modern state contained in Reflections made people rethink what it meant to be a Whig. READ MORE › Feminists and Contraception Alexandra DeSanctis Human Life Review In January 2023, an article by New York Post columnist Rikki Schlott surveyed a striking trend: a growing wave of young women opting out of hormonal birth control. The writer herself is one such malcontent. “Recently, after six years on it, I decided to stop taking the pill,” she says. “But it isn’t just me. Many of my friends are independently doing the same, whether it’s driven by concern for their mental health, desire for something more natural—or curiosity about what the world looks like when you’re not in a hormonal fog.” She argues that an increasing number of her peers are declining oral contraception because they have “an intuitive sense that hormonal birth control might be messing with us, and our brains.” READ MORE Henry Olsen will speak on a panel at the Heritage Foundation on the topic "Crisis of Masculinity: Why Are Boys Falling Behind?" When appraising American social cleavages, we should avoid lapsing into two unfortunate trends in conservative thinking: despair and polarization.
READ MORE ›   The Fracturing of Spanish Politics by henry t. edmondson iii As moderate parties struggle to form coalitions, extremists on both right and left are able to exert more influence. READ MORE › Tocqueville understood how constitutional review, without meaningful checks, could enable judicial despotism. READ MORE › James Burnham Explained Our Predicament in Three Books
By Francis P. Sempa, The American Spectator: “Burnham foresaw the rise of progressive elites who would guide America to its inevitable decline.”   The Empire was not fundamentally moral or emancipatory. That doesn't mean no good came from it. READ MORE › The most important things we can do to combat loneliness start at home, not in the legislature. READ MORE › On August 12th, Henry Olsen celebrates ten years at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Read more about Henry's accomplishments during his time at EPPC is available on our website:
READ MORE  The Birthplace of the American Artistic Imagination By Michael De Sapio on Jun 06, 2023 03:39 pm At a time when intellectual Europeans scoffed at the very possibility of America producing art or beauty, the Hudson School created an outpouring of beauty worthy of any country. It was an aesthetic uniquely American, based on hope in a bountiful land blessed by Providence but also aware that our world below is dark without ... Read in browser » There is a paleoconservative impulse to reject the conservatism of Buckley or Kirk in favor of class warfare, racial grievance, and power politics. READ MORE › For Adam Smith, the desire to persuade was a powerful human motivation underlying his theories of rhetoric, moral philosophy, economics, and jurisprudence. READ MORE › Sir Alec Guinness: A Star Beyond Star Wars How Modernity Diminishes the Human Person St. John Fisher, St. Thomas More, & the Tudor Terror The Myth of End of Oil and Regime Change by Amir Taheri Unpredictable ChinaA new book argues that the West should be ready for any eventuality from Xi Jinping. / Read here Rupnik Affair exposes leadership crisis in Jesuits, Roman Curia By Christopher R. Altieri on Jun 18, 2023 10:21 pm The disgraced celebrity artist-priest, Fr. Marko Rupnik, requested release from the Jesuit order several months before the Society of Jesus dismissed him. The claim came in an Italian-language statement released Saturday over the signature of [...] Read in browser » From Plutarch to Kissinger, we continue to learn from studying the lives of great statesmen. READ MORE › Emerson, Thoreau, and James coped with their grief in different ways. But they were all parallel paths in the same direction. READ MORE › Market expansion was clearly good for European states, but Smith recognized that asymmetries of power bred injustices in the world beyond. READ MORE › The seven crises of globalization studied by Harold James demonstrate that they were shaped by a heady mix of events, reactions, ideas, and choices.
READ MORE › WHY GEORGE WEIGEL STILL MATTERS & OUTSTANDING PUBLICATIONS ON ISLAMIC POLITICAL ECONOMY, HISTORY6/2/2023  Whittaker Chambers’ “Witness”: A Story for the Ages By Chuck Chalberg on Jun 01, 2023 04:24 pm "Witness" is a brief against the “dying civilization” that was the United States of the Jazz Age. The America of F. Scott Fitzgerald, flappers, and general frivolity was dying? The young Whittaker Chambers vaguely thought so at the time. The mature Chambers of "Witness" was convinced of that. Whittaker Chambers “Man without mysticism ... Read in browser » The central Mystery of the Faith, the Source of Reality Blessed Henri De Lubac? A Somber Anniversary Parting Reflections The Catholic Crisis Over “Us” Middle East Quarterly Spring 2023 https://www.meforum.org/64221/review-political-economy-of-reforms-in-egypt Middle East Quarterly Spring 2023 https://www.meforum.org/64222/review-when-parliaments-ruled-the-middle-east Syria and Captagon: An Assessment by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi Middle East Forum May 25, 2023 (view PDF) https://www.meforum.org/64442/syria-and-captagon-an-assessment Tempting Turmoil in Sudan: How Chadian Rebels in Sudan’s Conflict Would Further Regional Instability, Tensions within American Catholicism today reflect a long-running debate between Americanists and separationists.
READ MORE ›  A Republic If You Can Keep It: Religion, Civil Society, & America’s Founding By Michael Weiner on Apr 16, 2023 03:00 pm Though civil libertarians rightly point out the dangers of an unchecked government, they blissfully ignore the dangers of an unchecked, unrestrained populace. It is thus worthwhile to return to the founders and examine what role they desired religion and morality to play in their new Republic. The story goes that as Benjamin Franklin departed from ... Read in browser » Orestes Brownson’s New England & the Unwritten Constitution By Michael J. Connolly on Apr 16, 2023 04:00 pm Orestes Brownson so esteemed New England people, customs, and institutions that they dominated his writings and fit at the heart of his political ideas. The danger of majoritarian tyranny hangs over republics. The dilemma of constituting a virtuous republic while also restricting interests, sects, and factions’ use of unchecked political power possessed eighteenth century American ... Read in browser » Classical, New, or Conservative Liberalism? Before rebooting America’s system of natural liberty, we first need to understand what liberalism is. READ MORE › Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series is the best introduction for a child to virtues indispensable to liberty.
READ MORE ›  Medieval Monasticism’s Timeless Lessons on Concentration Jamie Kreiner presents a revelatory account of Christian monks' battle with distraction and how their victories can inform us today. READ MORE › The Fast Casual SocietyOur abandonment of standards of dress means the loss of expressive potential and our sense of occasion. / Read here Substantially Obligated A New York State court ruling vindicates the principle of parental authority in education. / Read here Passing the Baton The handoff from Bush to Obama gives us a glimpse into post-9/11 foreign policy and the requirements for an orderly transfer of power. READ MORE › Shakespeare and the Western Tradition of Liberty Shakespeare deserves critics like Young and Ranasinghe who take him seriously and appreciate his work. READ MORE › The Feminine Mystique, sixty years on By Andrew Petiprin on Apr 12, 2023 05:43 pm In 1963, Betty Friedan published her influential book The Feminine Mystique, inventing a term to describe the languor born of unfulfilled desires among American women, whose primary duties consisted in keeping their homes and raising [...] Read in browser » On the Spiritual and the Cultural Life By Michael De Sapio on Apr 15, 2023 12:10 pm The spiritual life (including the prayer and rites of religion) and the cultural life (including the artistic and intellectual cultivation of the human person in its countless forms) together ensure that life is more than a blind cycle, a march leading nowhere. They reveal the sense of our pilgrimage and light a path to our ... Read in browser » 'Remove Your Church': The Persecution of Christians, March 2023 by Raymond Ibrahim
 “How did Dostoevsky know?” by Gary Saul Morson (May 1999). On totalitarianism, evil & intellectuals. A careful examination of the Privileges or Immunities Clause shows what we lost 150 years ago. READ MORE › John Wick is an image of rugged American individualism, from his Mustang and gun to his silent demeanor.
READ MORE ›  George Weigel writes in his syndicated column about the somber mood in the Vatican on the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis' election. Madison’s “Extended Republic” and the Culture Wars The Victorian Jacobites And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln & the American Struggle With employment demands, assessment requirements, and skill training gone taken over by AI, what will be left for the university to do? READ MORE › Israel tends to make American headlines only for violence and geopolitics. But there's much more to the Jewish nation. READ MORE › Medical students, like all humans, are meaning-seeking creatures. But you wouldn't know that from medical education.
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