In general, this column covers a lot of pretty heavy topics. Some days, it’s time for something different (I figure I’m entitled to at least one dorky Star Wars post per movie). After two viewings of The Rise of Skywalker, my sentiments remain decidedly mixed. As I wrote in my review, there’s not really a single original idea in the whole film, and the film’s conclusion amounts to little more than a restoration of the post-Return of the Jedi status quo. (I... Read more
Over the last few months, I’ve had the pleasure of reading three fascinating books that touch on questions of faith and public life, from the perspective of very different theological traditions. Bari Weiss’s How to Fight Anti-Semitism chronicles the unsettling resurgence, on both the far left and far right, of virulently anti-Jewish views. Asma Uddin’s When Islam Is Not a Religion explains how Islamic belief, in the American political zeitgeist, is either stigmatized as a totalitarian political project or appropriated... Read more
Alas, professional life: perhaps the biggest downside of a legal job in downtown Washington, D.C. is the limited amount of time it leaves for independent reading. That said, the year wasn’t a total wash: my reading goal this year was 100 books and it’s looking like I’ll clock in at around 140 or so—quite a step down from last year’s 270, but such is life. Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, Tradition (Alasdair MacIntyre) Every time I read a... Read more
The notion of “human rights,” despite its omnipresence in modern political discourse, is not a concept that traditionally finds favor with philosophical conservatives. After all, Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue delivered a scathing critique of the doctrine, attacking its apparent indeterminacy and its seeming capacity to encompass any privilege-claims an individual might assert. On MacIntyre’s framing, the language of “human rights” routinely serves as a proxy for purely emotivist moral claims—that is, claims that amount more to assertions of personal preference than... Read more
Not long ago, I ran across the unfortunate news that the Boy Scouts of America have elected to mortgage Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, the Scouts’ flagship high-adventure property. In some ways, though, I’m not especially surprised. The BSA has faced steep membership declines over the last couple decades, and is currently staring down the barrel of multiple sexual-abuse lawsuits—with more to come as states relax the statutes of limitations for such cases. I’ve even read that the BSA... Read more
Earlier this week, HBO dropped the first episode of His Dark Materials, the latest big-budget fantasy epic designed to compensate for Game of Thrones’ absence. And as a longtime reader of the book trilogy it’s based on, I was more than happy to tune in. The show kicks off in an alternative, steampunk-inflected version of Oxford, where human souls take the form of animals known as daemons (from the Greek daimon, referring to a “guiding spirit”). All research and inquiry occurs... Read more
Earlier this week, I ran across a particularly good column in The Week, penned by the eternally curmudgeonly Catholic writer Matthew Walther. Walther begins by pointing out the obvious: despite the insane amounts of money and time, and the endless iterations of “educational theory,” deployed to address America’s reading crisis, the investments don’t seem to be paying off. Students are less and less interested in reading books that demand something of them, and more and more interested in ubiquitous electronic... Read more
It’s impossible for me to be perfectly objective about Will Arbery’s remarkable new off-Broadway play, Heroes of the Fourth Turning. That’s because, for all intents and purposes, I’m one of Arbery’s characters—or, at the very least, a resident of the world he captures. And the drama that plays out onstage could’ve been lifted, chapter and verse, from the conversations I’ve had in the last few years with my closest friends. As a bit of background, Arbery is the son of... Read more
Earlier this month, U.S. Attorney General William Barr delivered a rather astonishing speech at the University of Notre Dame. This was not the usual substanceless mush of “leadership” and “great things” and “tackling global challenges.” Rather, in critiquing “the growing ascendancy of secularism and the doctrine of moral relativism” and defending “a real, transcendent moral order which flows from God’s eternal law” and “standards of right and wrong that exist independent of human will,” Barr laid out a striking argument... Read more
A few days ago, I found myself discussing the state of modern academia with a friend of mine—a doctoral student in political theory at a large research university. My friend remarked that the tenure-track job prospects for new political science Ph.Ds, even those coming from top schools, were increasingly grim. That left me reflecting on the big-picture issues involved—in particular, the structural paradox of American higher education. On one hand, there’s a large and growing pool of potential students, as... Read more
Between Two Kingdoms
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