The Risks of Levity

The Risks of Levity

Milan Kundera, Ambiguous Prophet Trevor C. Merrill “Those no longer able to see reality with their own eyes are equally unable to hear correctly,” writes Josef Pieper. “It is specifically the man thus impoverished who inevitably falls prey to the demagogical spells of...

Beyond Cancel Culture

O’Connor, Updike, and the Literature of Self-Recrimination Michial Farmer The recent intra-literati arguments about Flannery O’Connor’s racism are, if nothing else, hard proof that ideas have consequences. Not long after the police killing of George Floyd ignited...
Academe’s Poisoned Groves

Academe’s Poisoned Groves

The Breakdown of Higher Education: How It Happened, the Damage It Does, and What Can Be Done by John M. Ellis. Encounter Books, 2020. Hardcover, $224 pages, $26. Reviewed by Lee Oser The irony of the year 2020 is that our culture is blind. By forsaking the light of...
Why We’re All Playing Identity Politics

Why We’re All Playing Identity Politics

Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein. Simon & Schuster, 2020. Hardcover, 336 pages, $28. Reviewed by Austin Coffey Ezra Klein—the political journalist, blogger, former cable news host, co-founder of Vox, and current editor-at-large thereof—has published his first...
The Six Communal Institutions and the Modern Economy

The Six Communal Institutions and the Modern Economy

Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain by James Bloodworth. Atlantic Books, 2019. paperback, 288 pages, $16. By Gerard T. Mundy Communal institutions keep the classical liberal–free market state from implosion. As the strength of what this essay identifies...