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Introducing America After Dobbs: A Public Discourse Resource
Interviews
By Patrick T. Brown and Tim Carney
The belief that childrearing is prohibitively expensive could be understood as a fruit of our collapsing civil society. Some people today don’t even consider that extended family, neighbors, churches, and other little platoons can, at least theoretically, provide real support to parents. They fall into believing that the only places to turn for help are the market and the state. Parents without community support then shift more burden onto themselves.
By Nathaniel Peters and Bronwen McShea
I’m hopeful, therefore, that not just ordinary readers, but also readers at the higher levels of ecclesial leadership, will learn some new things about women and Church history from my book. I also hope that some might reconsider and refine what they say in connection to the past and present role of women in Christian ecclesial and social life.
In spite of all the difficulties they told me—“my body is shot,” “I’ve taken second best in my career, ” but “gosh, I would have one more.” What is this thing, that you could drag yourself through all this hardship and still want one more?
By Brad Wilcox and Patrick T. Brown
Demographer Lyman Stone projects that, on the current course, as many as one in three young adults in the United States might never marry and as many as one in four will never have kids. That’s a lot of kinless Americans. Given the importance of marriage and family for what Jefferson called “the pursuit of happiness,” this would be a tragedy. So let’s find new ways to make it easier and more appealing for young adults to get married.
By Alexandra Davis and Luke Burgis
It’s useful to heed the words of Gabriel Marcel when it comes to desire. To paraphrase his “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived,” perhaps we could instead say: “Desire is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.” Girard himself refers to desire as a “mystery” on numerous occasions. I think he spent his entire life trying to understand that mystery.
As this idea of self-creation, telling our own story, self-determination has become seen as the fundamental element of human life, that means those of us who participate more fully in self-creation are more human, and those of us who participate less fully are, in some sense, less human.
Whenever you redistribute income, you never actually redistribute income. You destroy total income completely. Every revolution on planet Earth has been fought in order to change the distribution of income. Not one of those revolutions has ever succeeded in redistributing income, but all of them have succeeded in destroying the entire quality and quantity of total income.
Six panelists share how they structure their lives in a way that allows them to pursue creative, intellectually inspiring work, while remaining open to life and faithful to the good work of the home.
By Alexandra Davis and Alexandra Hudson
Politeness is manners, it’s technique, it’s etiquette, it’s behavior, it’s at the superficial, external level alone. But civility is a disposition of the heart. It’s a way of seeing others as our moral equals and treating them with the respect that they’re owed and deserve.
Book Reviews
By A. M. Juster
Cosmic Connections has intermittent charms. Those blessings were not sufficient, however, to justify the time and effort necessary to read the book.
Originalism is a theory of interpretation, but like any form of legal interpretation, it means little unless applied to facts. And facts are wrapped up in stories. Judge Thapar’s book is a reminder not to forget this.
David Hackett Fischer’s Albion’s Seed appropriately decries the antebellum American South’s practice of slavery, while acknowledging the South’s production of Americans who have also served the cause of freedom and truth.
A review of The Bible and Poetry by Michael Edwards (translated by Stephen E. Lewis, Jr.)
For American families, housing has become too expensive. We can make it more affordable if we build enough housing. But in order to do that, we cannot stop at making it legal; we need to make it easy.
By Lucas Morel
As Americans prepare to mark the 250th anniversary of the nation’s birth, in 2026, some argue there’s more to criticize than celebrate. Guelzo's latest book provides ample evidence of what Lincoln found worth celebrating about the American experiment, and what Guelzo finds worth celebrating about Lincoln.
In her popular new book, Abigail Shrier challenges parents to help kids through the hard parts of life rather than relying on the therapy industry.
Maier’s love for the Church comes through in this book and is why others who love the Church will want to read it. Perhaps we can hope for a sequel in which we will get to hear more of Maier in his own words.
Long Reads
By Ivana Greco
Popular culture tells us it is often more efficient to outsource routine household tasks than do them yourself. This leaves an important question unanswered, however: efficient at what?
As I revisited the familiar lyrics from my childhood, I noticed new themes and deeper meanings. To my surprise, I soon reached the unlikely conclusion that this classic family film has much to teach us about women, work, and feminism.
Human flourishing does not require escaping the cares and travails of this world, but rather, it imbues them with significance in the light of the Eternal One, in whom we live and move and have our being.
So, why should a Christian study the humanities? Because it’s what God made us to do. Because by doing so we do participate in God’s knowing of the world and can thereby come to understand him. Because by study we can better understand scripture and our experience of God. Because it lets us enjoy non-Christian beauty and truth in the light of Christ. Because it can be a means of spiritual growth and shape our experience of the world. And because it can move us to praise God who is the Truth itself.
By Mark Dooley
If we are to feel at one with the structures in which we labor and dwell, if they are to endorse our existence here on earth, beauty must take precedence over all other factors. Without it, the battle for the soul of civilization cannot be won.
By Jesse Smith
If the stories can change, it stands to reason that they can improve—or deteriorate. Responsible cultural elites of the Left and Right alike would do well to consider not only what claims they make explicitly, but what kinds of stories underlie those claims, and whether these are the right stories to tell.
Ultimately, the defeat of these terrorist groups is the primary ethical imperative. This will benefit not only Israel but also the Gazan civilians who suffer longer under their terrorist leaders and the continuous warfare that they breed. There is a moral cost to not acting decisively, and a strategic cost to forgetting the moral justification for killing in war.
By Yoram Hazony
Perhaps the time has finally come for anti-Marxist professors to concede that the liberal theory of the university as a “neutral” forum is too far removed from reality to be feasible. Instead, anti-Marxist liberals and conservatives should be defending a theory of the university as an educational institution that has no choice but to uphold at least minimal standards of substantive decency.
People have a right to protest supposed electoral fraud even if they are obviously and verifiably wrong. They do not have the right to commit violence. No one has the right to commit violence in a political cause. But not all political violence is insurrection.
Newsletters
By R.J. Snell
We do our best to build, strengthen, and defend the basic institutions of a free and flourishing people, institutions of the family, religion, good government, and education. At times we critique and note shortcomings, but even those criticisms are for something rather than against: we are for flourishing, for good institutions, and for the nation.
We work hard at every level of the editorial process to ensure that our essays are well-crafted, that our language is precise and that our arguments are sound. But most of all, we want to encourage and teach our readers to appreciate a well-formed argument, even if they ultimately come to a different conclusion than we do.
By R.J. Snell
Strap in, everyone, for we need to acknowledge that what is called for now is a generational effort, likely to be multi-generational, to recover reality. And it all requires the family. As the family goes, so goes our society. The flashpoint at the university, in the end, is far downstream from what is happening in the family.
The truth lurking inside the great morass of opinions, questions, and fears about the human condition is that a confluence of factors leads to greater personal, familial, and communal flourishing.
Reflections on hope, plus a roundup of this month's essays
Tension is something we at Public Discourse strive to handle well. Ours is a voice of reason, moderation, and calm even as storms swirl around us. The kind and thoughtful operation of reason always leaves peace, not awkwardness, not lingering tension, in its wake.
By R.J. Snell
Such technocratic management, incapable of moral action, is, I suggest, what Magerman notes at Penn. But, alas, it is true of far too many of our institutions and those who manage them. Not so at Public Discourse, however, and not so for those educated in older, richer, wiser traditions of moral reflection and judgment—and thus of action. Our essays this past month are full of such riches.
By R.J. Snell
Conflict is underway. Even already, so early in what could be a protracted war, the suffering is profound, the loss grievous and terrible. Things are almost certainly to become worse. It’s only natural, only human, to blanch at such pain, to avert one’s eyes, and wish for it to cease. But such sentiments, so natural and understandable, do not obviate the need to understand, deliberate, and judge according to the rule and demands of justice.