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Poland
  • War

Poland, the War in Ukraine, and the Problem of Moral Rearmament

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A major problem is that in these dangerous times, without strength there will be no lasting peace.
from the editor's desk

From the Editor’s Desk: Public Discourse’s Monthly Roundup, February 2024

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Reflections on right reason plus a roundup of this month's essays
Luke Burgis

Q&A: Be Not Conformed—Girard and the Problem of Desire in a Postsecular Age

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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.
IVF

Location, Location, Location

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Location is simply one more of those many factors that make no difference where the most foundational moral principles are concerned. The human embryo is a human being, whether in utero, undergoing cell division in vitro, or temporarily (or permanently) in frozen stasis in a “nursery,” as the Alabama Supreme Court tellingly, but somewhat ironically, calls it.
busy employee

Why Do We Valorize Busyness?

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That is the trap of busyness: believing that the busyness itself is what matters, instead of placing all our work and all our rest at the feet of our maker. That is the trap that the addiction to busyness in our culture lays for us. That is the trap that we ought to resist.
Catholic church interior

Can Catholic Integralism Be Good in Theory but Bad in Practice?

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If you want to boil this essay down into one question for the soft integralist, it is this: You say you don’t want integralism now, but if not now, when? Answering that question is harder than you think.
studying literature

English for the Dazed and Confused

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Give young Americans the story of literature from the Puritans to the Modernists. Make it a tradition and hand it down as an ingredient in their formation as citizens and tell them that they stand in the shadow of American greatness. This is not only a matter of knowledge and skill. It’s for their health. 
cities

Learning How to Govern by Running Our Cities Better

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If local politicians expect to be reelected, they have to focus on solving problems that are immediately relevant to their communities and the real people who live in them.
Constitution

Getting Authority Right: The Common Good and “Popular Sovereignty”

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Alicea repeats often and correctly the age-old insight that responsibility to care for the common good belongs to each member of the political community. But an equal sharing of authority does not follow from that shared responsibility, and no account of the Constitution’s moral authority will succeed if it presumes otherwise. 
flying birds at sunset

Impossible but True? A Review of They Flew: A History of the Impossible by Carlos Eire

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Eire’s absorbing and impeccably researched book invites us to at least ponder that alternative balancing act while reminding us of historian Ethan Shagan’s apposite observation that “every era is credulous, but they are credulous in different ways.”
Israel ruins

Persecution and Israeli Academia

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Many academics, perhaps recognizing the extreme nature of such boycotts, justify them by caricaturing Israeli policies as comparable to Nazism. It is only by such extreme assertions that boycotts can justify themselves.
Free speech in universities

Should Universities Protect Campus Anti-Semites?

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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.
Crucifix

The Religion That Remade the World

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Tom Holland raises many important questions about the connection between Christianity and contemporary Western civilization. All Westerners, be they Christian or not, would do well to consider his insights.
Warsaw, Poland

A Nation (Still) Faithful to Its Roots? What St. John Paul the Great Might Say to Poland Today

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The recent election clearly shows that the Poland of today is no longer the Poland of the 1990s or even of the early 2010s. It raises the question whether Poles have sustained the kind of culture necessary to build a market society based on authentic freedom and the truth about the good, one with a robust civil society to support both the logic of the state and the logic of the market.
Wittenberg

When Does an Intellectual Failing become a Moral One? Insights from Bonhoeffer

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According to Bonhoeffer, it is easier to reason and dialogue with a malicious person than with a foolish one.
Richard Mouw

Timeless Truths: Encouraging Civil Discourse

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Actively cultivating civility in our relationships with those with whom we disagree is itself a crucial way of anticipating the kind of people we want to be when the end time appears.
violinists

Music on Main Street: Building Community through Music

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Amid political polarization and concerns about declining social capital, local classical music associations are a bright spot for building humane and civil communities.
David Hume

Lessons from the Most Anxious Philosopher

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The ill effects of isolation on our mental health are not limited to our present cultural moment. In fact, the works of Enlightenment philosophers like David Hume reveal that many of our forefathers experienced similar levels of anxiety and depression, largely spurred by feelings of isolation. Here, we will examine the philosophical roots of our anxiety as seen in Hume’s works.
Stack of books

The Bookshelf: What Does It Mean to Interpret?

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There are no blackout curtains, only more or less obscurity to be overcome by the work of interpretation. Much of the burden of Hirsch’s two books is to describe the methods and account for the limitations of such work. The discussion is richly informed by linguistics and epistemology, governed by rigorous logic, and elegantly written.
John Witherspoon

The Witherspoon Way

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There is a case for cursing the darkness. But it is better to light a candle, and better still to light many.
Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift’s Feminisms

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Women need a grounded feminism that calls for a higher standard for both men and women. Before that happens, we need to be real about who women are, and part of that is acknowledging how aspects of the sexual revolution continue to harm women and relationships between the sexes. 
Reading literature

Seeking Moral Vision in a Digital Age

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It’s possible to be an awe-filled seeker of truth and use social media with prudence; however, social media are mediated by a tech industry that aims to capture our attention and keep us scrolling, not call us into a life of virtue.
Donald Trump swearing in ceremony

Is Donald Trump Disqualified from the Presidency? A Response to Matthew J. Franck

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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.
Networking

The World, the Flesh, and the Young Professional: Reforming How We Approach Networking

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To the extent that networking preoccupies us with appearances, it distracts us from real professional excellence. This excellence is the basis for truly enriching professional relationships, and it can serve as an alternative to the spirit of unbridled acquisitiveness that usually drives how we network.
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