Pitting as it does two different conceptions of popular sovereignty against each other, the debate over the Electoral College is a proxy for a more fundamental debate over what kind of regime should govern America. The history of French republicanism teaches that the closer Americans come to changing the way they elect their president, the closer they come to regime change.
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The Art of the Question
A seminar should lead students into exploring a great work, rather than presuming to master it. This may reawaken the intention of contemplation. In the end, happiness is species of contemplation, and—as Aristotle shockingly reveals—everyone wants to be happy.
The Bookshelf: Summer Experiments and Attempts
Summer—a time of lounging in a shaded hammock between two trees, or under a beach umbrella—is a great time for bite-sized nonfiction. With Public Discourse taking a publishing hiatus for the week following Independence Day, now is a perfect time to stretch out with some small provocation of thought.
Are Chinese Apps Just Trojan Horses?
The future of warfare will rely heavily on technology, and apps provide the perfect avenues for acts of espionage and targeted disinformation campaigns against the American people. Since the Chinese Communist Party has access to the copious amounts of biometrics, location tracking, conversations, and other personal data collected by apps like TikTok and WeChat, the Biden administration should take action against this serious security threat.
Rejecting the Culture of Authenticity
Unless and until the excesses of authenticity culture are able to be moderated, we can expect the widespread relational fragmentation, loneliness, and loss that flows from it to continue unabated. Nevertheless, authenticity should not be discarded as an ideal. Instead, we must articulate a more constructive and reasonable conception of authenticity that can be passed on to the next generation.
Repudiating Roe (Part II): The Pernicious Doctrine of Stare Decisis
The doctrine of stare decisis is a dangerous tool, malleable, and peculiarly susceptible to manipulation and abuse. It entices and deceives. If just two justices compromise their principles and betray the Constitution, Dobbs will be lost. If so, Dobbs will displace Casey as the worst Supreme Court decision of all time, and the justices rendering it will merit the most severe condemnation of history. But if the Court overrules Roe and Casey, the Dobbs case would rank among the most magnificent decisions in the Court’s history.
Repudiating Roe (Part I): The Most Important Abortion Case in Thirty Years
This is a signal moment in America’s constitutional history. One of the most notorious decisions in the Court’s history is likely either to be repudiated and overruled—discarded, finally and definitively—or else reaffirmed and entrenched, perhaps permanently. The stakes could not possibly be higher.
The Death of Gratitude in the American Classroom
Encouraging people to be gracious, and to recognize what others have provided them through no merit of their own, is not about “guilt tripping” them. It is to encourage a particular way of existing in the world. Gratitude acknowledges the plenitude of goodness that surrounds us every moment of every day in millions of small acts of people we do not know.
Our Self-Defeating Pursuit of Happiness
Written in an engaging and compact style, Benjamin and Jenna Storey’s new book is essential reading for all observers of the persistent, often hidden, but increasingly visible unhappiness of contemporary life.
Taking Literature Personally
Truth is not something “out there,” but a relationship between person and thing. Good literature arises out of that relationship, telling truths in a personal way, making the world it reflects more personal.
Nominalism, Nihilism, and Modern Politics
The belief that human beings and human communities can be rearranged in any way that suits our creative fancy is, as the examples of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union show, an invitation to tyranny and disaster.
Why We Opposed an Anti-Abortion Resolution at the Southern Baptist Convention
The resolution on abortion that was passed at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville was well-intended but woefully flawed. It offers no exception for the life of the mother, and it opposes incrementalism. Those two items are serious shortcomings that would lead to the loss of more innocent lives, not fewer.