During his acceptance speech this summer, presidential candidate Joe Biden included an inspiring quotation from a play by Seamus Heaney (1939-2013), an Irish poet. The quote is about hope. It comes from The Cure at Troy (Farrar, Straus, 1991), which is Heaney’s 81-page rewrite of Philoctetes by Sophocles (497 BC-406 BC). Late in Heaney’s play the Chorus speaks these lines: History says, Don’t hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave... Read more

Two Catholic laymen are credited with starting Labor Day: Matthew McGuire (1855-1917) and, no relation, Peter J. McGuire (1852-1906). Matthew McGuire was a machinist from Paterson, NJ who began factory work at age 14. Throughout the 1880s he was involved in the Knights of Labor, the first successful national union in this country. Peter McGuire was born in New York City. He moved to St. Louis where he was a carpenter. In 1881 he moved to Chicago and formed the... Read more

A fresh consideration of socialism is happening these days. Two remarkable presidential campaigns by Sen. Bernie Sanders and perhaps a more significant Congressional campaign by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have put socialism into public discussion. During Covid 19, serious questions about public health and welfare have additionally opened a door to socialism’s approaches. Like capitalism, there are several definitions of socialism and a variety of ideas and personalities associated with it. The merits of capitalism are usually measured in practical terms;... Read more

A fresh consideration of socialism is happening these days. Two remarkable presidential campaigns by Sen. Bernie Sanders and perhaps a more significant Congressional campaign by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have put socialism into public discussion. During Covid 19, serious questions about public health and welfare have additionally opened a door to socialism’s approaches. Like capitalism, there are several definitions of socialism and a variety of ideas and personalities associated with it. The merits of capitalism are usually measured in practical terms;... Read more

Some years ago I was part of a lobby group to change the feast of St. Joseph the Worker from May 1st to the first Monday in September. The change would apply only to dioceses in the United States; the country that has Labor Day in September. The proposal got a respectable hearing from some bishops but the liturgy police (smile) at the bishops’ conference said no. In 1889 communist and other pro-worker groups in Europe designated May 1st as... Read more

In the latter half of the 1960s many U.S. cities experienced race riots. Plus, the exodus to suburbs that began in the 1950s accelerated in the 1960s and into the 1970s. Plus, industry left our Atlantic coast and Great Lakes cities, moving to the South or overseas. All of this made for the first urban crisis. Demographer Richard Florida details a second one in The New Urban Crisis (Basic Books, 2017). The new crisis is inequality. It is “the concentration... Read more

In philosophy it is called utilitarianism. In business it is called cost-benefit-analysis. In family life it is thinking about the pluses and minuses. It is the default moral system in the United States and elsewhere. It is functional in limited situations. It has no place, however, in calculating the value of one or another human life. Many college students have participated in a class exercise where they must choose to throw one person into shark infested sea because their small... Read more

Museum of the City of New York (1220 Fifth St., New York, NY 10029) just ended an exhibit about the history of workers in its city. It’s not too late, however, to enjoy the exhibit. It is the basis for City of Workers, City of Struggle edited by Joshua Freeman (Museum of City of NY, 2019; $40). Our Chicago Public Library has a copy, as do other libraries. The book’s introduction notes that working people help define politics, culture and... Read more

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917), Max Weber (1864-1920) and other founders of the discipline of sociology were concerned about the negatives that accompany modernity. Why is it that people live closer together, yet in their proximity they are strangers? Why in the highly rational and efficient modern world do people struggle to find any meaning within their day? What happened to a world that was once teleological, infused with meaning, enchanting in the morning and delightful at sunset? Why with so much... Read more

“Consuming and participating in politics by obsessive news-following [and] by arguing and debating” is not politics, says Eitan Hersh in Politics Is for Power (Simon & Schuster [2020]; $27). To binge on MSNBC, devour Fox News or constantly share one’s opinions with friends and family on social media or in phone calls, is “to satisfy our own emotional needs and intellectual curiosities” but in itself serves no “serious purpose.” Hersh calls the trap political hobbyism: Instead of electoral engagement (canvassing,... Read more