[Speaking of McLuhan] “I believed then, as I believe now, that he spoke in the tradition of Orwell and Huxley—that is, as a prophesier, and I have remained steadfast to his teaching that the clearest way to see through a culture is to attend to its tools for conversation” (Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, …
Ron Paul: YouTubin’ FeeNom
Something funny is going on.
Some Good Leepike News
A couple days ago, I mentioned that Books & Culture had named Leepike Ridge their book of the week. That was a fun business, and now there’s some more news to add. The book is selling quite briskly, and has gotten to a sales ranking at Amazon that is higher than some comparable titles that …
Optimistic Cultural Realism
When Rome, the Eternal City, was sacked in 410 AD, St. Augustine was brought to write his monumental work, the City of God. Part of the reason he felt the book had to be written was because many Christians had had their faith rattled by the event. Over the course of the previous centuries, Christianity …
To Deny Their Own
“Multiculturalism was conceived by the Western elites not to celebrate all cultures but to deny their own: it is, thus, the real suicide bomb” (Mark Steyn, America Alone, p. 194).
Medium as Message
“In this sense, all culture is a conversation or, more precisely, a corporation of conversations, conducted in a variety of symbolic modes. Our attention here is on how forms of public discourse regulate and even dictate what kind of content can issue from such forms” (Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, p. 6).
Sauron, Saruman, and Samwise
I have been occupied with atheism and federal vision stuff, and have not been able to work through Rod Dreher’s book Crunchy Cons as quickly as I would have liked. Ah, well. His next chapter is on the environment, and I think that it is the chapter that most clearly reveals what I consider to …
Now That’s Cool
What’s needed around here is a good definition of the word cool. We all know what is intended whenever we encounter it in a sentence, but a clear understanding nevertheless remains elusive. One individual is successfully cool. Another makes the attempt, with tragic results, and even a lowly junior high student knows to roll his …
The Hebraic Mind
Careful students of church history see far more in it than names and dates, battles and councils, popes and reformers. The history of the church is very much a history of ideas. But in order to talk about the course and influence of these ideas, we have to talk about the various schools of philosophy …
Pornostan
“What do you call a jurisdiction split between post-Christian secular gay potheads and anti-whoring anti-sodomite anti-everything-you-dig Islamists? If Kurdistan’s an awkward fit in Iraq, how well does Pornostan fit in the Islamic Republic of Holland?” (Mark Steyn, America Alone, p. 120).