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individualism

“The idea that we can enjoy the benefits of society while owing nothing in return is literally infantile. Only children owe nothing.”

John Fea   |  December 20, 2022

Last night I read author and television script-writer Noah Hawley‘s piece about what he saw, experienced, and thought as he took a family road trip between Austin, Texas and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Here are a few snippets: As we drove,...

The Author’s Corner with Maurizio Valsania

Rachel Petroziello   |  October 24, 2022

Maurizio Valsania is Professor of American History at the University of Turin. This interview is based on his new book, First Among Men: George Washington and the Myth of American Masculinity (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022). JF: What led you...

The Author’s Corner with Alex Zakaras

Rachel Petroziello   |  October 21, 2022

Alex Zakaras is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont. This interview is based on his new book, The Roots of American Individualism: Political Myth in the Age of Jackson (Princeton University Press, 2022). JF: What led...

How the British monarch defies modernity

John Fea   |  September 14, 2022

Here is Sebastian Milbank at the British website The Critic: In an increasingly secular and individualist world, it is very rare to see people who have given over their lives to a calling or vocation that swamps and overshadows their...

I’m not going to pay for that guy’s kid to be educated

John Fea   |  July 12, 2022

What is the common good? Should a person or couple with no children have to pay taxes to support public education? It seems to have to come this. Here is Michael Tomasky, editor of The New Republic: The Times’ Dan Barry reported on...

The Author’s Corner with William Novak

Rachel Petroziello   |  March 23, 2022

William Novak is Charles F. and Edith J. Clyne Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. This interview is based on his new book, New Democracy: The Creation of the Modern American State (Harvard University Press, 2022)....

The Author’s Corner with Robert Gross

Rachel Petroziello   |  January 10, 2022

Robert A. Gross is Emeritus Draper Professor of Early American History at the University of Connecticut. This interview is based on his new book, The Transcendentalists and Their World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021). JF: What led you to ​write The Transcendentalists...

Historian Jonathan Couser responds to George Will’s column on individualism and identity politics

John Fea   |  December 29, 2021

Yesterday I wrote a post on George Will’s recent column on identity politics and modernity. Over at Facebook, historian Jonathan Couser responded to Wills. Here is his take, published with his permission. –JF George Will is one of the few...

George Will on the premodern origins of identity politics…

John Fea   |  December 28, 2021

…and national conservatism. This is a really interesting column. A taste: Prophecy is optional folly but an irresistible end-of-year temptation. So, at the risk of allowing a wish to be the father of a thought, a plausible prediction is that...

Jill Lepore on the state of “society”

John Fea   |  November 30, 2021

Here is a taste of the Harvard historian’s recent piece at The Guardian: In March 2020, Boris Johnson, pale and exhausted, self-isolating in his flat on Downing Street, released a video of himself – that he had taken himself –...

Joan Chittister on the Beatitudes

John Fea   |  September 10, 2021

Here is the Benedictine Sister at the National Catholic Reporter: In Scripture, we find the Beatitudes, the signs of what it means to be a good human being, an ethical government, a moral country. The renewal of the United States...

Commonplace Book #198

John Fea   |  August 25, 2021

However much the United States has been a moral or religious nation guided by (individual) impulses of spirit and conscience, it has also seen repeated mergers, or confusions, of religious and material intentions. One would be hard-pressed to argue that...

Tocqueville said that “selfishness originates in blind instinct: individualism proceeds from erroneous judgment.” Both are at work in our mask wars.

John Fea   |  August 25, 2021

What is happening to America? The Donald Trump presidency is primarily responsible this mess. He lifted the veil of civility and empowered the kind of people you see and hear about in the video I posted below. If the republic...

Do Americans still believe in the common good?

John Fea   |  August 23, 2021

It’s a fair question. Here is Kentucky-based writer Silas House at The Atlantic: Refusing to sacrifice for the common good is an American problem, not just a Kentucky one; opposition to masking and vaccination is happening in such disparate places...

Is this what Ronald Reagan meant by a “shining city on a hill”?

John Fea   |  August 15, 2021

Today as I read New York Times writer Jamelle Bouie’s recent column on vaccines, I was struck by these words. Is it any surprise that millions of Americans treat this fundamentally social problem — how do we vaccinate enough people...

What is going on at McLean Bible Church? (And the ongoing debate over “wokeness” in evangelicalism)

John Fea   |  August 2, 2021

I remember back in 2010 when evangelicals were reading David Platt’s book Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream and giving out copies to their friends. Platt is now the pastor of McLean Bible Church, a flagship evangelical...

The Biden administration is framing health as a matter of personal choice. Why this is a bad idea.

John Fea   |  June 10, 2021

I drove through four states yesterday. I didn’t get out of the car much, but when I did make stops I didn’t see many masks. When I got to my hotel I read Ed Yong’s piece at The Atlantic. Here...

What about proof of vaccination?

John Fea   |  May 14, 2021

Here is Dr. Leana Wen at The Washington Post: For months, I have been criticizing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for being too cautious with its guidance for what fully vaccinated people can do. I saw little incentive...

Pope Francis’s scathing critique of American life

John Fea   |  November 27, 2020

Yesterday at The New York Times, Pope Francis published an excerpt of his new book Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future. He offers a devastating critique of the selfishness that we Americans try to pass off as...

Why don’t white evangelicals vote for Democrats?

John Fea   |  October 8, 2020

Historian Daniel Williams, in a thought-provoking piece at The Anxious Bench, asks: Why have white evangelicals been so antipathetic to Democrats, even before their disagreements with Democrats over abortion or LGBT issues emerged?  And can anything ever convince them to...

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