Pillar

Education & Culture

The fourth pillar, education and culture, is built upon the recognition of two essential realities. First, the Western intellectual tradition requires a dedication to and desire for truth. Second, education takes place not only within colleges and universities but within our broader culture, whose institutions and practices form us as whole persons.

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Untethered to an “establishment” and or a “mainstream” that needs to be placated, today’s conservative students can experiment freely with impolitic ideas—perhaps more closely approaching the truth in the process.
Government funding of education should not be tied to the beliefs of unaccountable academics. Public support for education should empower students and parents, and the choices they make.
The traditional pillars of religion that support a view of God as transcendent Creator remain unshaken by the discoveries of modern science.
Contemporary sex education prepares young men and women not for the fullness of friendship, intimacy and love, but for casual relationships and recreational sex.
Notre Dame’s acceptance of the same-sex marriage movement’s rhetorical paradigm has made our nation’s flagship Catholic institution impotent. Yet there is an opportunity for the Notre Dame community to model ways to promote the good amid the crumbling ruins of institutional integrity.
Parents have a fundamental right to raise and educate their children as they see fit. Their authority precedes that of the state.
The anti-slavery arguments of American abolitionists demonstrate the way in which Lockean natural rights and Thomistic natural law can be reconciled.
It is impossible to make a political argument without also making a moral claim. Demanding tolerance often functions as a way to evade robust discourse about the merits of one’s principles.
In a society in which the profit motive tends to make all other interests subordinate to the almighty dollar, Chick-fil-A’s founder declared that the store would not be open on the Sabbath.
To love our children well, we must equip them with a strong education in the sciences as well as the liberal arts.
College students, like everyone else, want to be happy. Educators should help them ground this desire for happiness in acts of virtue.
Although we uphold the cultural taboo on incest, we accept something with precisely the same negative effect on integrity, marriage, and family: pornography.
At a time when many children grow up without the love of their biological father, the sacrificial love of the men who willingly fill that void demands recognition.
To effect a real change in behavior, colleges must not only change the messages they send—they must establish new patterns for college life.
Speech codes won’t fix what ails a relationship marketplace that aggravates—rather than relieves—the risk of sexual violence. California’s proposed law will simply multiply accusations, legal proceedings, and judicial headaches.
Refusing to make exceptions to absolute moral norms is not unrealistic, imprudent, or inhumane. The purpose of norms is to promote human flourishing and protect what is good
Today’s global citizenship movement emphasizes human rights disconnected from the history of any particular nation and without a clear conception of human nature.
The totalitarian temptation can never be entirely overcome, and there is always a possibility that barbarism will return. Thus, we must ceaselessly strive to pursue love, dignity, and freedom.
Legislators and judges not only can but must gauge the moral justification of every law.
At times, cinema succeeds where philosophy fails. Films like Nebraska show us the importance of honoring our elderly parents and remind us of the unique dignity of every human person.
Edward Feser’s latest book gives readers who are familiar with analytic philosophy an excellent overview of scholastic metaphysics in the tradition of Thomas Aquinas.
Traditional religion, with its reliance on an authoritarian God, its understanding of humans as sinners, and its grounding in particular times and places, provides the only stable foundation for affirming the sanctity of human life and enabling human flourishing in new cosmic situations.
Workers must have the freedom to develop real expertise and to exercise this rational mastery in pursuit of good ends. Only in the pleasures of prudence can we truly realize those excellences of which human beings are capable.
Churchgoing Christians who support same-sex marriage are more likely to think pornography, cohabitation, hook-ups, adultery, polyamory, and abortion are acceptable. And it’s reasonable to expect continued change in more permissive directions.

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