Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Human flourishing

October 27, 2017

Haiti’s solar entrepreneurs

Jean-Ronel Noel and Alex Georges began their company in a garage in Haiti, tinkering with solar panels and light bulbs, wondering how their experiments might translate into an actual product. “We have plenty of sunshine, so is there a way that we can harvest energy from the sun to resolve the energy problem?” Continue Reading...
September 27, 2017

Pope, Patriarch need theology of civilization

Today at Public Orthodoxy, I examine the recent claim of Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew that The human environment and the natural environment are deteriorating together, and this deterioration of the planet weighs upon the most vulnerable of its people. Continue Reading...
September 25, 2017

Houston’s culture of rugged communitarianism

In the late 1920s, a primary theme of Herbert Hoover’s presidential campaign was the idea of “rugged individualism,” the practice or advocacy of individualism in social and economic relations emphasizing personal liberty and independence, self-reliance, resourcefulness, self-direction of the individual, and free competition in enterprise As Hoover said about the era in the U.S. Continue Reading...
July 24, 2017

Work too much? You might have the ‘Proletariat Touch’

Two weeks ago, a group of scholars from around the world gathered in Notre Dame, Indiana for Holy Cross College’s Labor and Leisure Conference. Among the many present was scholar Joseph Zahn, who presented his paper, “The Status of Leisure in the Human Person: Whether Leisure is a Virtue?” Continue Reading...
July 17, 2017

Arvo Pärt on the economy of wonder

Our society has grown increasingly transactional in its ways of thinking, whether about family, business, education, or politics. Everything we spend, steward, or invest — our money, time, and relationships — must somehow secure an immediate personal return or reward, lest it be cast aside as “wasteful.” Continue Reading...
July 14, 2017

Human machines & the nature of man

On Tuesday, Newsweek published an article relating how the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) allocated $65 million to develop brain implants “to link human brains with computers.” Neuro-technology has been a priority of the U.S. Continue Reading...