Probably the first serious conservative writer that I ever read, apart from William F. Buckley Jr., was Russell Kirk (1918-1994).   Here, from his classic book The Conservative Mind, is his attempt to sum up the essence of what he termed radicalism, which he vigorously rejected.  The basic principles of all Western radicalisms, he said, are:   (1)  The perfectibility of man and the illimitable progress of society: meliorism.  Radicals believe that education, positive legislation, and alteration of... Read more

    I’m told that the folks at Greg Kofford Books have now corrected their inaccurate quotation of Steve Densley’s Interpreter review of one of their books.  (I’ve been busy in Jerusalem and have just spent roughly thirty hours in airports and on airplanes during my return home, so I haven’t really been paying a whole lot of attention.)   I mentioned the matter twice here on this blog:   “Constructing advertising copy and jacket blurbs: art or science?”   “‘A very... Read more

    “Repudiation of scientism is the only way the we can break free from some of the more debilitating habits of thought that have dominated modern intellectual life.  But this repudiation is unsustainable, even by the most heroic effort, without a distinction between science and scientism.  If denying scientism’s sway requires us to deny the truthfulness, value, or reality of scientific knowledge — as seems to be implied by some of today’s critiques — then in my opinion the... Read more

    The late anthropologist Loren Eiseley, in The Firmament of Time: A scientist writing around the turn of the century remarked that all of the past generations of men have lived and died in a world of illusions.  The unconscious irony in his observation consists in the fact that this man assumed the progress of science to have been so great that a clear vision of the world without illusion was, by his own time, possible.  It is needless... Read more

    A couple of days ago, I briefly related a story about the rival Arabian poets Jarir and Farazdaq.  (See “Ancient Arabia and the power of words.”)  That is the anecdote mentioned here:   Several observations can be made about this story. First of all, like the story before it, it illustrates the power of the pre-Islamic Arabian poet. But it also says a great deal about primitive Arab notions of where poetry comes from. The image of Jarir... Read more

    On Saturday, our group arose early and headed first to the Shepherds’ Fields near Bethlehem — specifically to the Franciscan area.  We went into one of the caves and ended up sharing the space with a group of German Christians.  That was especially fun for me, as we joined with them to sing several Christmas carols in German and English.  (Christmas, for me, has long had a slightly German tinge.)   Afterwards we looked out over the fields... Read more

    Another selection from my notes:   Harvard psychiatrist Armand Nicholi, Jr., suggests that one motivation for Freud’s atheism may have been his overpowering desire, as an unfashionably Jewish intellectual in fin-de-siecle Vienna—where anti-clericalism and secularizing contempt for religious belief were common among the educated elite—for personal acceptance and the acceptance of his new theory of psychoanalysis.[1]   Freud’s early experiences with anti-Semitism critically influenced his attitude toward the spiritual worldview.  In Austria over 90 percent of the population... Read more

    More notes from one of my manuscripts:   This was much the same impression that his contemporaries had of Joseph, even late in his career.  “He is a man that you could not help liking as a man,” George W. Taggart wrote from Nauvoo to his three non-Mormon brothers in the fall of 1843, “setting aside the religious prejudice which the world has raised against him. . . .  Neither is he puffed up with his greatness as... Read more

    Still pilfering my notes:   The zealous Oxford polemicist for Darwinism, Richard Dawkins:  “Even if there were no actual evidence in favor of the Darwinian theory . . .  we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories.”[1]  Why?  Simply because it is naturalistic. C. Todd, a professor at Kansas State University, published a letter in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, announcing that “Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an... Read more

    “Nephite History in Context: Artifacts, Inscriptions, and Texts Relevant to the Book of Mormon”   I’ll be interested to see how this effort goes.  Years ago, before certain employees of the Maxwell Institute (née FARMS) decided to assume control of it and to lead it in a fundamentally different direction, we had planned to compile a volume that would provide descriptions and backgrounds for the ancient. texts and artifacts that were routinely mentioned by Hugh Nibley and in other... Read more