Category: Essay

On Acedia: How to Save the West by Fighting Off the Demons of Weariness

The notion that there are limits to our growth is holding the West in a psychological stranglehold. Whereas other civilizations are thriving, the West suffers from a weariness that stifles any belief in further progress. This weariness has had a name for almost 2,000 years: Acedia.

The Political Economy of Speed

World order will tend to follow its own momentum. Rivals to U.S. hegemony like China do not, therefore, represent an alternative world-order, but an alternative bid for leadership over developing structures of biopolitical control.

Liberalism and the Utopian Temptation

Liberals like to claim that their political worldview is not even ideological, but simply what happens when kindness and common sense are allowed to prevail over dogmatism, tyranny, and impractical forms of political romance. But is liberalism, the ruling philosophy of our modern world, really so immune from the utopian temptation?

Communist Necrocracies

It is an irony that the regimes of godless Communists and imperial thugs must preserve the corpses of their revolutionary leaders, made incorruptible by enormous amounts of money, for their subjects to worship.

Scruton and Heidegger on Dwelling

The concept of ‘dwelling’ serves as a source for our pre-political loyalties and these loyalties allow a sense of the common good to arise. Here,

The Rus and the Rescue of Nations, Part I

Organic association and the principle of subsidiarity are the rescue of nations. They allow for the political articulation of common roots without alienating local cultural differentiation. They also permit overarching identities to be honored along with overlapping ones. Keeping this principle in mind, we may trace the history of relations between Moscow and Kyiv with an eye to how it could have been, and may yet, be applied.

Rehabilitating Death

Terminal care no longer encourages us to balance the pursuit of treatment with emotional and spiritual support. Rather, the conversation turns continually back to, “What do we do next?” as though the body were a computer with a glitch in the programming. No heed is paid to the reality–that the time will come when we do nothing. 

Suppression of Free Speech—“Human Rights” in the 21st Century

The first generation of human rights promulgation after World War II sought to guarantee freedoms to the individual against the state. Now, we are in a situation where we are suppressing other rights, such as the right to freedom of expression, in the name of the “right to a safe environment.” 

Between the Deer and the Idea: On Woodland Philosophy

The life of the mind is fundamentally dangerous when divorced from the world. Indeed, intellectuals have a moral duty to seek out ways of encountering reality—the thing out there—if they are to avoid becoming a tremendous nuisance to others, a trait so common among their kind.

The Moral Hypocrisy of the Corona Hysteria

The Moral Hypocrisy of the Corona Hysteria

Fear of nature will rule every meaningful decision regarding life and death. Viruses and climate change will justify continued social isolation and an increasingly totalitarian government.

August 4, 2021
The Historical Imagination of Christopher Dawson

The Historical Imagination of Christopher Dawson

Christopher Dawson is an enigmatic character in the history of Western thought. No scholar of his generation was a greater

A Middle Eastern Journey

A Middle Eastern Journey

We can now recognize a clash of two opposing views, indeed two clashing interpretations of reality: that of the local Syrians and that of the Western media.

July 7, 2021
Millennial Miserabilism and ‘Cottage Core’

Millennial Miserabilism and ‘Cottage Core’

The human heart will ever desire a family life, a life of meaning within a community, and a life in consonance with nature, ultimately ordered to the Divine.

July 7, 2021
The Centenary of Northern Ireland

The Centenary of Northern Ireland

The northern Irish state was born in 1921 as a political compromise. The circumstances of its birth bear certain similarities to the issues and conundrums thrown up by Brexit 100 years on.

July 7, 2021
Born on the 4th of July? Thoughts on American & European Identity

Born on the 4th of July? Thoughts on American & European Identity

How are we to think about the relationship between the United States and Europe?

Waterloo: From Hope to Fear and Back Again

Waterloo: From Hope to Fear and Back Again

Waterloo’s importance is perennial.

June 18, 2021
The Contested Rock: Gibraltar after Brexit

The Contested Rock: Gibraltar after Brexit

A natural fortress in a perfect location, Gibraltar—or “the Rock”—is a priceless strategic asset. Its fate after Brexit put it in the middle of an intense struggle.

April 23, 2021
Young Fogeys Redeemed

Young Fogeys Redeemed

Young Fogeydom is not a new phenomenon in the Anglophone world. Indeed, Young Fogeys may have made their first appearance at Oxford University during the Tractarian Movement of the mid-19th century.

April 12, 2021
The Patriotism of St. John Paul II

The Patriotism of St. John Paul II

Though his first visit to Poland passed without any clashes or incidents, it undoubtedly left a profound mark. Pope John Paul II was going to be a pope who was shaped by his homeland, and who loved his mother country.

January 10, 2021
Patriotism and National Identity

Patriotism and National Identity

Establishing anew the cause of nationhood by situating its defence in the moral life of its members was one of Scruton’s achievements. The conservative movement of the future would do well to concentrate on this facet of his philosophy.

January 7, 2021
Lesson’s from Spain’s Imperial Decline

Lesson’s from Spain’s Imperial Decline

Seventeenth century Spain is one of history’s more ostentatious and luxuriant contradictions—a gorgeous oxymoron.

November 20, 2020