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The Wisdom of the Neocons

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Drawing on the wisdom of the neocons might point us towards a harder, but ultimately more fruitful, approach to our current political problems.

Can We Stop an International Roe v. Wade?

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We must act now to protect unborn children not just at home, but around the world.

A Constitutional Administrative State?

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All governments must collect taxes, punish criminals, enforce building codes, and license certain professions. The real debate is over how the administrative state acts and under what powers. What would a constitutional administrative state look like today?

The Contagion of Euthanasia and the Corruption of Compassion

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The contagion of assisted suicide, once the command “Thou shalt not kill” is set aside, quickly spreads elsewhere. True compassion does not abandon people at their most vulnerable.

The Consuming Self

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Americans increasingly identify with our consumption. When combined with political tribalism, the result is the increasing refusal to do business with members of other political or cultural groups. In the end, an identity based on consumption will only consume itself.

The Magnanimous Man: In Remembrance of Michael Cromartie

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Michael Cromartie created something—a web of people with a distinctive light infusing their work and relationships—that will persist long after his death.

The American Medical Association vs. Human Nature

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The AMA’s Code of Medical Ethics is a cautionary tale of what happens when medical ethics are grounded in social policy and personal intuitions rather than timeless, universal, and immutable moral truths.

Labor, Leisure, and Public Discourse

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Labor Day gives us an important opportunity to reflect not only on the meaning of our work but also on how we choose to spend our leisure time.

What? You Think All This Gets Done for Free?

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Public Discourse offers readers the opportunity to deepen and broaden their educations, applying solid philosophical principles to the problems that plague our politics and culture.

What A Muslim Family’s Chair for the Pope Teaches Children about Catholic-Muslim Relations

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A new children’s book provides a way to introduce children to Christian-Muslim relations by celebrating robust and full religious expression in a diverse society.

Political Theory, Travel, and the Love of Home

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If we approach it correctly, travel can help us to see the beauty of other cultures and ways of life without denigrating either the primacy of truth or one’s own native country.

The Need for Thick Schools: Classical Education Against Cynicism

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Many of our schools are breeding grounds for cynicism. Schools need to be “thick” institutions that tutor students’ deep human needs of happiness, friendship, approval, and rootedness.

Educating the Educated: The Why and How of Liberal Education for Adults

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Many adults discover that their undergraduate education has provided little material for real intellectual, creative, or spiritual life. St. John’s Graduate Institute, emphasizing Great Books and discussion, furnishes an invaluable model for educating adults with non-professional, life-informing goals.

The iPhone and Us

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On this tenth anniversary of the birth of the first smartphone, the day of reckoning is at hand: how will we Millennials produce the next generation of great books when the smartphone has killed our capacity to concentrate?

The Physiophobe: Modern Man Against Reality

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We are physiophobes: we are afraid of, or we detest, the way things are. We take no delight in the real. We do not revel in boys being boys and girls being girls, and their coming together in marriage, the real thing, to make children, real children.

Ten (Bad, But Popular) Arguments for Abortion

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A philosophy professor reflects on the poor arguments that convince his students of the justice of abortion.

National Sovereignty and the Challenge of Immigration

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The idea of national sovereignty is indispensable to any coherent discussion of immigration policy.

St. Louis’s Unholy War on Religious Liberty

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An ordinance passed in St. Louis, Missouri, prohibits discrimination in housing or employment on the basis of “reproductive health decisions.” Promoted as an anti-discrimination measure, the law’s actual purpose is to destroy the self-government of religious and pro-life organizations.

The Human Rights Campaign Rewards Walmart for Having the Same Bathroom Policy as North Carolina

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If major leaders in the gay movement cannot keep up with its constant invention of new “rights,” then they certainly can’t shame others for failing to do so.

Pursuing Unity: Race and the American Story

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The primary cause of American disintegration is not the proliferation of sources of division, but rather the absence of sources of unity to counterbalance and contextualize them. The racial divide is the most productive place to start in recovering the American mission and restoring national unity.

In Defense of Elizabeth Harman: Taking Pro-Choice Philosophers Seriously

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If we believe that all human beings deserve respect, we ought to act like it. That means we should use our rational faculties to understand and answer bad arguments, not ridicule those who make them.

Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization

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Any defense of the West must be clear about those core commitments to reason and the reasonable God that are central to its identity.

Religion and Politics at the Dinner Table: Challenging the Old Maxim

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In an age increasingly marked by incivility, we need places where we can learn (or relearn) the practice of civil disagreement. The family is uniquely suited to serve as a training ground for this crucial virtue.

American Abortion, American Freedom

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Like slavery, abortion has become in the leftist mind the central political issue, on which the economic and social liberties of the modern United States all hang.