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Eric Scheske

Aristotle to Aquinas to Pieper: Leisure Solves Nothing. That's What Makes it Counter-Conduct

In the tradition that runs from Aristotle through Aquinas to Josef Pieper, leisure is not a solution to anything, but an alternative way of being in the world. In Pieper’s formulation, leisure “runs at right angles” to the practical pursuits of work and achievement. Leisure and Liberality | Elizabeth C.

Hate the River-Rat!

I gotta say, I'm really enjoying Will Percy's 1941 autobiography, Lanterns of the Levee. I'd heard of it for years but never bothered to buy it, much less read it. The prose is beautiful, if a bit ornate by today's standard, and

‘Incoherent narrative’: 1619 Project’s New Hulu Series Gets Capitalism All Wrong

Maggie Kelly at The College Fix

Why We are Culturally Gnostic

I'd re-title David Brooks' recent op-ed about progressive sadness, "The Gnostification of America." He touches on four of Voegelin's six gnostic traits (and the other two are also present, but op-eds need to be short), starting with discontent. He points out that liberals

Study Shows You’re Nobody Until Somebody Loves You

Naomi Schaefer Riley at The Washington Free Beacon

Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover, I Suppose

I know nothing about this book except what I read in this review. If the reviewer is honest, the publisher isn't. Of course, the publisher is Doubleday, which is probably about as mainstream (corporate, legacy, establishment) media as you get, so it shouldn't surprise me that

I Thought I Was Saving Trans Kids

By Jamie Reed at The Free Press

Gandalf the Grey or Gandalf the Gay?

Ivy Tower News August 4, 2021 BOSTON. Tolkien was a devout Catholic like President Biden. And like President Biden, he embraced homosexuality. “It's pretty clear Gandalf was homosexual,” says Leonard Chadwick, Professor of Multicultural Studies at Enormous State University and noted Tolkien scholar. “Advances in Gay Studies, especially

The Antihumanist and Transhumanist Cometh

I posted this review-essay for one reason: I've been seeing Adam Kirsch's name a lot in The New Criterion and First Things (and other places). I guess his name has been popping up in those journals for years and I just hadn't noticed. Anyway,

Theorists: Left Hemispherists

The left hemisphere is the hemisphere of abstraction and theory. Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things, p. 30. The right hemisphere is the hemisphere of experience: fresh, unique, embodied . . . being present with things as they are. Id. The Brownstone Institute was built on the rubble of COVID policy. It'