The Liberal Education of Freedom: A Critical Review of Matthew Rose’s “Liberal Education for Freedom”

The non-violent, but argumentative, ideal of liberal education is not the suddenly arrived-at point of a nonpolarized liberal society. Instead, the purpose of liberal education is the iterative practice of a non-violent but argumentative society.

Inarticulate Authenticity

Thirty-six years ago, Robert Bellah and others, in their seminal book “Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life” identified a problem and prophesied its social consequences - that of political and social polarization. We live in those prophesied consequences today. The problem, as Bellah and his co-authors identified it, was the tendency … Continue reading Inarticulate Authenticity

Cravings and So-called Desires

The substance of the addiction is thus a way to imitate a certain semblance of well-being and thriving. The problem is, of course, that sustainable sources of thriving are absent, and they must therefore be imitated by artificial substitution. Sustainable sources of thriving are still absent.

The Politics of Sexuality, Part 3: Homosexual Weddings, and Marriage

A marriage, on the other hand, is made by a daily effort to live out the vows until death. In the words of my father, the vows I make to my spouse are not so much like laws that I keep or break; they are commitments that keep or break me. The vows may be taken seriously or not, broken or not, but there is no way of withholding them from homosexuals. You cannot copyright the vows which a homosexual couple is perfectly free to make. The government cannot forbid them to do so, nor can any church.