Whisky is not a product of savvy entrepreneurs. It is a product of Scottish culture that, like the drink, should be savored and appreciated. The primary consumers should be the local populations that imagined whisky. When operations go big to satisfy cosmopolitan demand, they lose something of that human touch and local flavor that give [...]
It is the perennial task of the conservative to disentangle the truth from the weeds of confusion which keep growing up around it. Samuel Francis and Patrick Buchanan have greatly contributed to the present resurgence of conservative elements rising up in America. Whatever political victories may come of their work should certainly be celebrated. “Go [...]
I like the idea of celebrating “homo faber”—man the maker or worker. Work is something that is part of our dignity, a triumph of the human spirit. The celebration of work is something desperately needed in our culture today. “Why are we celebrating Labor Day? You don’t belong to a labor union,” one of my [...]
When the government began to define “essential” services, I began to question the relationship between man and his labor: Does man simply work to provide the means to live for his household or does he engage in work for its own sake? The rising unemployment numbers, which of course is the natural consequence of a [...]
Everybody agrees student loan debt is a large problem, having serious adverse effects on family formation, purchasing of houses, and many other aspects of American life. So, what should we do? Everybody agrees student loan debt is a large problem. In the United States approximately $1.5 trillion is currently owed by around 45 million people [...]
By the fall of 1932, most Americans had come to perceive the depression differently than they had at its beginning. Growing numbers began to worry that depression, rather than being a temporary and purgative event, marked a permanent condition of material scarcity and economic stagnation. With fears mounting that the economy is about to slip [...]
Tools are a significant part of the permanent things, but they are also relative to time, place, and function. That is, we are tool-using animals, whether it is a flint-edged knife, or the one supposedly developed by Jim Bowie, or the Swiss Army knife. Or to put it another way, we are an ingenious species, [...]
There is a Tory tradition in America that runs against the grain of establishment Liberalism, embracing home, hearth, community, family, church, nature, and the moral realities of everyday life, and opposed to individualism, unlimited free markets, libertarianism, secularism, and the rootless loneliness of global modernity. This tradition comes from within America, not without. One day [...]
As we start a new chapter of life after our move from Minnesota to Texas, I have a new goal for us. From now on, we are to switch our minimalism from Money to Things. No more acceptance of free things that will make our house less free. Henceforth and forevermore, we are no more [...]
When we strip away all the fancy arguments and strong opinions about capitalism, or industrialism if you like, we see a person in the workplace is a commodity, a thing to be used up and discarded. As a result, capitalism creates a thing-oriented society, where machines, profits, and properties are more important than people. I [...]
Everyday life is the true setting for your lives as Christians. Your ordinary contact with God takes place where your fellow men, your yearnings, your work and your affections are. There you have your daily encounter with Christ. It is in the midst of the most material things of the earth that we must sanctify [...]
The poor, Jesus famously said, will always be with us. Jesus’ followers have often been accused of misusing these words of their Master as an excuse to ignore the systemic causes of poverty. Christians, the charge runs, have preached private benevolence as a substitute for the more arduous, and more courageous, task of fighting to change [...]
With so much buying happening online or through self-service kiosks, the art of shopping has lost much of its attraction. Some market-savvy executives have noticed this shortcoming and have recently introduced slow checkouts, which turn the routine chore into a meaningful experience. With so much buying happening online or through self-service kiosks, the art of [...]
The real problem with the technocratic Charles Murray is his zeal for the pernicious “American creed” of radical individualism. Facing Reality: Two Truths About Race In America, by Charles Murray (168 pages, Encounter Books, 2021) Viewed from the right, Charles Murray is an almost tragic figure. A libertarian-leaning proponent of America as the first “proposition [...]
