When I called my Dad, he was honest: “That was silly. I thought you knew better than that.” What had I done? When we got married, I had the strange delusion that the dialectic that worked so well in philosophy would be most helpful in all things relational. We would sketch out our problems on a chalkboard (this was thirty-three years ago) and discuss. Having considered all our options, a decision could be reached mutually beneficial to all! What larks! The... Read more
Winning can be fatal. No loss is greater than victory secured by exhausting the moral resources of a people. This summer of 2019 I tried to understand how France won World War I, ending the Great War with the most powerful military on the planet, and twenty years later was prostrate before the Nazi menace. The War to End All Wars did not end war, but did end France or at least the France of 1789.* What did I learn?... Read more
Irony is often the cowardice of intellectuals. Imagine the Big Boss is a horrible tyrant and the best way to stay employed (or alive!) is continuous flattery. The clever man might say: “You, Big Boss, are the biggest bossiest Big Boss that ever bossed. We are all larger for being managed by you. Thank you.” Said just the right way the Big Boss will bite and the “cool friends” will know you did not really mean what you had said... Read more
France may have fallen to Germany in 1940, but at least the French liberals were owned. This is the error that cannot differentiate between evils: ending up equating corrupt liberal or conservative citizens of France with Hitler. Progressive French values failed France, so traditionalists felt vindicated enough to work with Hitler. Traditional values should not include setting up secret police in free France, but so it was in Vichy. Liberalism should not include making excuses for Stalin, but so it was in... Read more
Imagine a religious right run by a serial adulterer and a political opportunist. In 1940 the United Kingdom had fled Europe in a miraculous escape from a military debacle. France, the winner of World War I, had fallen apart and Hitler was touring Paris. If France was to survive, then reality had to be faced: the future of Europe was German. The only other option was Stalin in the Soviet Union, and at least in 1940, this seemed no better... Read more
He was the Victor of Verdun and if he had died an old man, he would be one the great French heroes, but instead he died a very old man and so ruined all that came before his fall. He lived too long and in hard times, his flaws, greater it turned out than his many virtues, were there waiting, and destroyed him. Petain had been ready to retire when World War I came. He did his duty and helped... Read more
To join Vichy is to survive without pride. Vichy France, is unheroic World War II, no plucky London withstanding the Blitz, not brutal Soviet Russia smashing Hitler on the Eastern Front, not even a pitiful victim like Denmark that no reasonable person expected to do better than she did. France, more than any other great power, had won World War I and had come out of that war as (perhaps) the most powerful nation in the world. She frittered all... Read more
As a boy the Dallas Cowboys were led by the very admirable coach Tom Landry. He seemed just so to me especially when the great Roger Staubach was his quarterback. However, I loved the Green Bay Packers, thank the gentlemanly Bart Starr, and eventually the two loves clashed. The Packers were, in my childhood days, becoming very bad and the Cowboys good. As the Packers struggled to get better, the Cowboys often closed the door. The tension became too great, one love... Read more
I asked for new voices and got some outstanding writers! Today we hear from the erudite James R. Harrington. James R. Harrington earned his M.A. in Ancient History at California State University Fulleron and is a member of the Torrey Honors Institute. James has been a classical educator in a variety of settings over the past thirteen years. He lives in Houston with his wife, Sharon, and their daughter. Harrington began with a series on shields in classical literature and now... Read more
Cry Justice Justice matters, including justice toward those who are poor. This is not a liberal or conservative position, justice for the poor is fundamental to Christianity. Why? No Christian can take the Bible seriously yet ignore injustice. We have a duty to alleviate human suffering. A summer spent reading the book of Habakkuk reminded me that there are few Bible books, no matter how short, that do not urge justice for those in need. Justice is the goal. No Utopianism,... Read more
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