Over at Black Perspectives, historian Nico Slate reflects on the history of this famous phrase with a short analysis that spans from Theodore Parker to Martin Luther King Jr. to Barack Obama and beyond. Here is a taste of his […]
Way of Improvement
Who will be on the GOP debate stage tomorrow night?
The second GOP presidential primary debate on Wednesday night will include Doug Burgum, Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Tim Scott. Donald Trump will not attend. Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson did not make the […]
Ralph Nader will support Biden in 2024
The goal is to keep Donald Trump as far away from the White House as possible. Here is Michael Scherer at The Washington Post: The liberal activist Ralph Nader still remembers nearly the exact words Joe Biden used to banish […]
Is “girl boss feminism” on the decline?
Here is Liza Featherstone at Jacobin: This elitist vision of feminism has been around for more than one hundred years. In the early twentieth century Alexandra Kollontai, a Russian socialist organizer and writer who would later become the only woman in […]
“Don’t let right-wing culture warriors obscure the fact that some ideas behind this progressive ideology have genuine problems.”
Last week we called your attention to Yascha Mounk’s new book The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time. Today we want to call your attention to a Mounk piece at The Atlantic based on the […]
Commonplace Book #284
The Social Gospel softened the impact of industrialism and brightened the lives of many men, and the policies it recommended still have merit. It did, however, strengthen that tendency of American thought that identified fraternity simply with solidarity. By adding […]
In defense of academic book reviews
Here is historian Carolyn Eastman, the book review editor at the William and Mary Quarterly, at The Chronicle of Higher Education: Reviews can contain perfunctory writing, boring chapter-by-chapter summaries, and criticism so mild it’s almost imperceptible. But having just stepped […]
Are public intellectuals condescending?
Becca Rothfield writes: “If the academic humanities too often address only siloed experts, then pop philosophy too often addresses an audience of imagined idiots. And condescension is an especially risky vice for public intellectuals, because it conflicts with the very […]
If you were homeschooled, there is a good a chance you attend either Liberty University or Hillsdale College
Here is Ryan Burge, the religion and politics numbers guy, referencing a study at TheFire.org, the website of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression: More from Burge here.
Commonplace Book #283
American theorists sought for some element of fraternity some suggestion of bonds uniting man and man. Yet the Enlightenment doctrines made the object of that search difficult to attain. Reason, conceived as the “servant of the passions,” could not unite […]
Episode 117: “The Idea of Fraternity in America”
What is fraternity? Our guest in this episode of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast, political scientist Susan McWilliams Barndt, discusses her father’s 1973 magnum opus The Idea of Fraternity in America. We talk about the work of Wilson Carey […]
Evangelical roundup for September 25, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land? 65% of evangelicals in two-adult households donate to charity. Rich Mullins: Evangelical court jester. Russell Moore finds a model in Mitt Romney. The number of evangelicals in Spain is growing. Former Buffalo Bills quaterback […]
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: The academy v. Betty Friedan David French on Trump and the pro-life movement. Will $500 million save local journalism? What is the Crick? Flannery O’Connor’s childhood caretaker. Joe Posnanski: Sportwriter […]
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Commonplace Book #282
The Revolution of 1689 put matters on a different basis. James II had been New England’s unambiguous foe, an enemy to provincial autonomy and a Roman Catholic. Pardonably, the clergy could not resist the temptation to regard the Glorious Revolution […]
Should Wheaton College have expunged the name of its third president from the campus library?
Last week we called your attention to Wheaton College’s 122-page report on its history of race. In response to the findings of that report, Wheaton College announced that it would be changing the name of its library. It is no […]
What is going on at Westmont College?
Soong-Chan Rah is the Robert Munger Professor of Evangelism at Fuller Theological Seminary, an evangelical seminary in Pasadena, California. Here is a recent post from his Substack page: Despite all the craziness in the Evangelical world, I have retained my […]
Jemar Tisby responds to Boston University’s investigation of Ibram X. Kendi’s antiracist center
I am not sure if Jemar Tisby will like this comparison, but I think it is fair to say that most evangelicals see him–for good or for bad–as the Christian version of Ibram X. Kendi. Kendi wrote Stamped from the […]
Commonplace book #281
Americans, especially young Americans, cannot find their country in the land about them. Often, in fact, they cannot find the land, hidden as it is by the cancer-growth of concrete and the slow poisoning of air and water. Wealth accumulates, […]
Ibram X. Kendi responds to Boston University’s investigation into his antiracist center
Get up to speed here. Here is Abby Patkin at Boston.Com: Following news of mass layoffs and an official inquiry into Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, the famed author is pushing back on allegations of mismanagement from current […]