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Our Hero Socrates
February 1, 2010
Peter Augustine Lawler
It’s my pleasure to be able to introduce Nalin Ranasinghe’s Socrates and the Underworld: On Plato’s Gorgias to you as one of the most able, eloquent, noble, profound, and loving books ever written on Socrates. Ranasinghe restores for us the example of a moral hero who inaugurated a moral revolution in opposition to his country’s post-imperial cynicism and nihilism. What Socrates discovered about the human soul remains true for us in our similarly cynical and nihilistic time. Here’s the truth:
Articles / Essays
Our Hero Socrates
February 1, 2010
Peter Augustine Lawler
It’s my pleasure to be able to introduce Nalin Ranasinghe’s Socrates and the Underworld: On Plato’s Gorgias to you as one of the most able, eloquent, noble, profound, and loving books ever written on Socrates. Ranasinghe restores for us the example of a moral hero who inaugurated a moral revolution in opposition to his country’s post-imperial cynicism and nihilism. What Socrates discovered about the human soul remains true for us in our similarly cynical and nihilistic time. Here’s the truth:
Interviews
“Yellow Ants,” Fundamentalists, and Cowboys — An Interview with Rémi Brague
October 29, 2009
Interview and translation by Diederik Boomsma & Yoram Stein
We interview the French intellectual Rémi Brague, about his life and work. The question of whether and in what way the West is unique forms a large part of the interview. Whether one can sensibly speak of “three religions of the book”, whether Brague is a Straussian, what the civilizational role of poverty, humility, and cultural inferiority complexes are, and whether Americans really are cultural cowboys, each get discussed in turn.
Book Reviews
The Real Historical Jesus
January 27, 2010
Louis Markos
A review of Is Jesus the Only Savior? by James R. Edwards (Eerdmans, 2005).
Studies have shown that Christian youth are just as likely as their secular, non-believing peers to agree with the statement, “everything is relative.” They may have a deep relationship with Christ and a clear understanding of the basic tenets of Christian orthodoxy, and yet believe simultaneously (and without feeling any cognitive dissonance) that Christ is but one of many paths to God.
Poetry
Whisper
January 26, 2010
Jeffrey Bilbro
A parody Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. In “Whisper” Mr. Bilbro breaks down some of the feelings of and about Generation ME. A thought provoking piece that should be required reading in all freshman English classes.
Fiction
A Man of Action
February 8, 2010
By: Jonathan David Price
Coffee is all that matters to Mr. Johnson at this hour. One cup at eight. Only in the morning. He has only missed his coffee twice, the day he had to leave his wife and kids, and the day his mother died. He was bitter both days. Mr. Johnson likes his coffee bitter—two squirts of milk… Read more
Featured Essay
The Iconographic Fiction and Christian Humanism of Flannery O’Connor
Vigen Guroian
“What the word says, the image shows silently; what we have heard, we have seen.” That is how the Seventh Great Ecumenical Council, held at Constantinople in 787, summarized its defense of the use of icons in Christian worship. What the council confessed to have heard from scripture and to believe, is that God became man in Jesus Christ. According to the Gospel of John “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:13–14). Through an act of unfathomable kenosis, the infinite had become finite, the uncircumscribable was circumscribed in a human being, and the invisible was made visible.
When Chalcedon Meets Hollywood
Bradley Shingleton
Writing at the threshold of the twentieth century, G. K. Chesterton noted that “Words are perpetually falling below themselves. They are ceasing to say what they mean, or to mean what they say…”1 Matters are no different today, thanks in large part to the impact of media on literary and cultural life. And perhaps no words have been susceptible to decay in meaning more than religious ones.
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Featured Poetry
Whisper
Jeffrey Bilbro
A parody Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. In “Whisper” Mr. Bilbro breaks down some of the feelings of and about Generation ME. A thought provoking piece that should be required reading in all freshman English classes.
Slamming My Next Poem Home
Comfort
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From the Archives
“Cows too…can easily be made into ideas”: An Interview with Roger Scruton
Interviewer: Diederik Boomsma
What distinguishes conservatism from classical liberalism?
The problem with classical liberalism is that it never pauses to examine what is involved in ‘not harming others’. Do I leave others unharmed when I destroy my capacity for personal relationships, through drug-taking, promiscuity, or porn addiction? Do I leave them unharmed when I stupefy myself with pop music? I have nothing against individualism, so long as it is recognized that the individual is created by a community and by the moral constraints that prevail in it. The individual is not the foundation of society but its most important by-product.
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