Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'rhetoric'

January 11, 2017

The trivium of business school

Note: This is the second in a series on developing a Christian mind in business school. You can find the intro post here. When people ask me what business school was like, I’m tempted to say, “A lot like a medieval university.” Continue Reading...
November 16, 2015

Bourgeois Equality: The Modern World Can’t Be Explained By Material Causes

Economist Deirdre McCloskey is set to release the long-anticipated conclusion of the Bourgeois Era trilogy sometime next spring. The book, Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World, will build on her thesis that our newfound prosperity is not primarily due to systems, tools, or materials, but the ideas and rhetoric behind them. Continue Reading...
July 08, 2014

John Milton’s Anthropology of Liberty

Today’s edition of Prufrock (subscribe here!) notes the forthcoming release of Paul Hammond, Milton and the People (Oxford, July 29): Who are ‘the people’ in Milton’s writing? They figure prominently in his texts from early youth to late maturity, in his poetry and in his prose works; they are invoked as the sovereign power in the state and have the right to overthrow tyrants; they are also, as God’s chosen people, the guardians of the true Protestant path against those who would corrupt or destroy the Reformation. Continue Reading...
December 18, 2012

On the Importance of Definitions

I recently asked the question at Ethika Politika, “Which Capitalism?” (also the title of my article), and I followed it up with a related question here regarding the relationship between distributism and capitalism (is the former a form of the latter?). Continue Reading...
March 06, 2012

Religious Liberty, Rhetoric, and Partisan Squawking

Concerning the HHS mandate, somehow getting lost in the shuffle is the primacy of religious liberty. Mollie Hemingway offers a good post at Ricochet on the media blackout. Certainly, political partisanship and lust for power is clouding the centrality of the First Amendment. Continue Reading...
December 14, 2011

Fearing Big Government

In terms of the blogosphere, I’m sure this polling data from Gallup published two days ago showing that fear of big government dwarfs fear of big business and big labor is ancient history. Continue Reading...
September 09, 2011

Samuel Gregg: Obama’s Speech Misses It

Over at National Review Online, a panel of experts reacts to last night’s jobs speech by President Obama. Acton’s director of research, Samuel Gregg, was not encouraged by what he heard: a jumble of disproven Keynesian theories and strong-man rhetoric. Continue Reading...
August 19, 2009

Book Review: How to Argue Like Jesus

I recently finished How to Argue Like Jesus (Crossway, 2009) by Joe Carter (The Evangelical Outpost, First Thoughts) and John Coleman. I would have loved to have had this book to assign during the 13 years I taught college composition and rhetoric. Continue Reading...