Public Discourse

Jonathan Last’s new book attributes population decline and the birth dearth to two trends that started in the Enlightenment era—first, an effort to limit death; second, an effort to control birth. Both trends are guided by a desire to control nature.

A new argument that reduces marriage to any consensual caring relationship is grounded by a cynical view of human nature that we ought not accept.

Marital love implies dependence on another instead of autonomy, and it shows that certain goods (sex and procreation, love and marriage, marriage and parenthood) are connected. We must recover the language of self-giving. The second in a two-part series.

The logic of contract and the movement to conquer nature have resulted in the triumph of autonomy and demise of the family. The first of a two-part series.