Cultural Decline

A Nation of Sludge

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee; And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And…

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Stupidity: A Malady of the Cultural Elite

by James Kalb

We live in something of a meritocracy, and our rulers believe they are by far the most enlightened and well-informed people who ever lived. For that reason they feel entitled to make the aspirations of the present day, or what…

Another Ordinary Year in America

by Anthony Esolen

The student congress at Harvard, America’s most prestigious “institution of higher learning,” as the euphemism goes, has voted to provide funds to a campus group promoting sadomasochistic sex. Members of the Love and Fidelity Network, a group promoting chastity before…

Barbaric Fragmentation: John Courtney Murray Foresaw the U.S. United in Confusion

by R. J. Snell

Voting patterns of this last election give ample support to the notion of the divided country, and it is now virtually obligatory to bemoan polarization while calling for unity in our fragmented polis. As obvious as our polarization seems, perhaps…

Cultural Crisis and the Long Game: Fr. Lonergan’s Contemporary Relevance

by R. J. Snell

The Church, it is sometimes said, thinks in terms of centuries, not years or decades … or election cycles. Without intending to minimize the importance of this upcoming election and its implications for economic and foreign policy matters, it’s worth…