Our hope is that, by reading PD regularly, our readers will be formed in such a way that they have not only knowledge on particular topics, but also virtuous habits of mind. By illustrating the capacity to earnestly and carefully think through what’s good and what's bad about both conservative and liberal positions, we show that sobriety and careful, detached thinking is still possible—that we really can have knowledge about the truths that give order to our being.
Where there is a mutual commitment to truth and truth-seeking, relationships can be built between religious believers and secularists, and they can indeed reason together. The minimum condition is this: interlocutors, however wide and deep their substantive philosophical or other differences, need to share the conviction that business between them is to be conducted in the proper currency of intellectual discourse—namely, reasons, evidence, and arguments.
As a post-Trump conservative coalition struggles to define itself, social and religious conservatives should seize the opportunity to step up and play a leading role, making support for families a central tenet of the American right.
The question that divides us is how we ought to respond to reproductive asymmetry: the reality that women carry disproportionate burdens due to our special role in human reproduction. What makes one a feminist is the view that this basic inequality at the heart of reproduction is one that deserves, in justice, an affirmative cultural response. We wish not only for maternity to be celebrated for the true privilege it most certainly is, but also for women to be encouraged and supported in other contributions they make. This requires that the burdens of childbearing ought to be shared not only within the family, but also across the wider society too.
Faith and family: for many of us, these are not only the most important parts of the Christmas season. They’re also the things that make life most worth living.
Senator Warren, please don’t compromise what you know to be true for the sake of political expediency. Don’t hurt American families by pushing them farther and farther into the two-income trap. Most of all, please don’t create a system that penalizes moms who choose to stay home with their children.
Could a new national conservative coalition enable Burkean conservatives to harness populist energy, using public policy to strengthen the core American institutions of family, religion, and country? Or will it inevitably degenerate into dehumanizing racism and xenophobia?
When we don’t teach young men how to be good men, that doesn’t erase their desire to prove themselves to their peers. It just leaves a vacuum in which “boys will be boys” style “locker room talk” and objectification of women can easily masquerade as manhood.
Mona Charen’s new book traces the history of the feminist movement, identifying when and how it went off the rails. According to Charen, contemporary feminists’ most serious problem is that nearly all of them have forgotten that “equal” does not have to mean “the same.”
For the past ten years, Public Discourse has been a different kind of website—thoughtful, calm, and civil, even while defending unpopular truths. In our next decade, we want to keep improving, reaching more people, and addressing a broader array of topics.
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.
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.
This Fourth of July, if you believe that the work we do improves the political discourse that is so vital to the preservation of our republic, won’t you make a gift to support the work of Public Discourse?
Becoming parents shocks us out of our normal state of being. It compels us to love others more deeply and to act upon that love more fully.
To restore loving family life to the heart of our culture, we must begin with ourselves—one family, one person at a time.
It’s common to worry that the internet is isolating us. But could it also be helping to create new forms of community?
Valentine’s Day is usually associated with romance, but love matters in politics, too. In working to change our culture, we must remember that our opponents, like our allies, are human beings whose individual conversions can only be wrought through a combination of love, truth, and free will.