Somebody Send Him My Dad’s Bitterness Booklet
Which Would be Inaccurate
“One way of articulating the central idea of the counterculture is simply to say that it collapsed the distinction between deviance and dissent (or, more accurately, that it began treating all deviance as dissent).”
Nation of Rebels, p. 80
The Foundation of Christian Civilization
‘Paideia was one of those huge words in the ancient world, and it referred to the enculturation of a child so that he could take his place as a citizen in the polis. In other words, paideia referred to an all-encompassing, civilization-making reality. Paul is using the word to refer to something very similar [in Eph. 6:4]”
Because the Feminists Tore Down Chesterton’s Fence
“For example, during the 60’s, many of the social norms that governed relationships between the sexes came under sustained criticism. Traditional male ‘gallantry’ involved showing a somewhat exaggerated concern for the health and well-being of women: opening doors for them, offering them one’s coat during inclement weather, paying for their meals, and so forth. Feminism argued that these norms, far from helping women, served only to reinforce the conviction that they were helpless and unable to care for themselves . . . Men took the criticism of the older male obligations as a license to do whatever they wanted. This gave rise to the widely noted epidemic of boorishness (or, as the English like to say, ‘yobbishness’) in the male population. Rather than finding alternative ways of expressing concern and respect for women, a lot of men have simply stopped paying any attention to the needs of women at all. For these men, equality means ‘I look after myself, she looks after herself’”
Nation of Rebels, p. 80
An Exercise in Missing the Point
“Imagine a four-lane highway, with two lanes going opposite ways, two to Heaven, two to Hell. A Ford and a Chevy are on the two lanes going to Heaven, and on the two lanes going to Hell are a Ford and a Chevy. We live in perverse time, such that when the Fords pass, the drivers beep and wave at each other. Same thing with the Chevys. The cars going in different directions might feel a real sense of solidarity, since they have the same kind of vehicle, but they are going in completely different directions”
A Lesson Not Yet Learned
Introduction: Today marks the eighteenth anniversary of the 911 attacks, and it is not quite accurate to say that everything has changed. It would be more to the point to say that everything is still changing. One of the basic things still in flux is that Americans are yet trying to find a fixed center …
Audio Reading of Post
When Dissent Isn’t
“We must distinguish, in other words, because dissent and deviance. Dissent is like civil disobedience. It occurs when people are willing in principles to play by the rules but have a genuine, good-faith objection to the specific content of the prevailing set of rules. They disobey despite the consequences that these actions may incur. Deviance, on the other hand, occurs when people disobey the rules for self-interested reasons”
Nation of Rebels, pp. 79-80
The Two Sides of Discipline
“Once we have accepted the duty of administering parental discipline, we discover that discipline itself falls into two categories: corrective and formative. Corrective discipline is correction of manifested sins in the past, as well as correction with regard to the future. Formative discipline anticipates temptations that are common to man and seeks to instill certain character traits beforehand”
Some Letters That Met the Deadline. Like This Guy.
Letter to the Editor: This message is intended to respond to your recent blog: "David French and the Chimerical Flibbertigibbet." I understand the main thrust of your argument in this ...
Almost as Good as Living in Her Basement
“They were romantic individualists who valued self-reliance and were possessed of a grand contempt for mass society. As Thoreau, who is best known for spending two years ‘roughing it’ in a cabin on Walden Pond (his mother actually brought him regular meals and did his washing), famously wrote, ‘The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.’”
Nation of Rebels, p. 69