“Our new awareness of how dynamic the world really is has united two types of stasists who would have once been bitter enemies: reactionaries, whose central value is stability, and technocrats, who central value is control” (Virginia Postrel, The Future and Its Enemies, p. 7).
White Grass
I am not quite sure how many times I have read 100 Cupboards in its various incarnations. Originally the entire trilogy was one big monster manuscript, which Random House decided to break into three separate books. And as the editorial process has gone forward, I have been privileged to read the story in its various …
Stasis or Dynamism?
“How we feel about the evolving future tells us who we are as individuals and as a civilization: Do we search for stasis—a regulated, engineered world? Or do we embrace dynamism—a world of constant creation, discovery, and competition?” (Virginia Postrel, The Future and Its Enemies, p. xiv).
I Age Mine in the Basement, Like a Fine Wine
“It takes judgment to know when prejudice should be maintained and when abandoned. Prejudices are like friendships: they should be kept in good repair. Friends sometimes grow apart, and so sometimes should men from their prejudices; but friends often grows deeper with age and experience, and so should some prejudices. They are what give men …
Genesis of Domestic Violence
“It proved far easier in the event to remove sexual restraint than to overcome each individual’s desire for the exclusive sexual possession of another; and it takes little effort of the imagination, even if we would rather not make it, to understand the result.” (Theodore Dalrymple, In Praise of Prejudice, p. 108).
Glorify God and Play the Bass
A group of young men in our church have had themselves a band for a few years now, and they have just completed an album. They were kind enough to give me a copy, which I have listened through a couple times now. They are quite good — one of the band members, when he …
Envy’s Cat’s Paw
When Paul and Silas came to Thessaloncia, they preached very effectively in the synagogue for three sabbaths running. When the leaders of the Jews there saw just how effective they were, they were stirred up by envy, and assembled a mob (Acts 17:5). The KJV renders their raw material for the uproar as “lewd fellows …
The Font of Envy
“However, people who think like this do so because they have asked the wrong question, or looked down the wrong end of the telescope. They have asked where poverty comes from instead of where wealth comes from. You might as well ask how ignorance of cardiac surgery ever came into being, rather than knowledge of …
First Things First
“It is from social prejudice that one learns social virtue. Metaphysical thought and reflection come later” (Theodore Dalrymple, In Praise of Prejudice, p. 83).
If the Shoe Pinches, Throw It Away
“But if you look into the church and consider the dissensions there, there is an additional reason for them, for usually many hypocrites are mingled in with the godly there. They take up a profession of religion and so creep into the church; they find spiritual things unsuitable to them, hence they fly off. Their …