Religion & Liberty Online

“To be conservative,” wrote Michael Oakeshott, “is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery.” His definition of conservatism, not as a set of policy aspirations but as a deeper sensibility, explains the conservative respect for tradition and view of history as a source of norms—that’s the positive side. Continue Reading...

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September 27, 2023

Questioning Science after Darwin

I can find no better way to summarize David Berlinski’s book Science After Babel than to say that it is classic Berlinski. The man himself defies a simple summary. He is a polymath and raconteur, as even his bio at the accompanying website explains. Continue Reading...

September 26, 2023

Are the Liberal Arts Elitist?

We have interesting classifications of our institutions of higher learning. The Carnegie classification of major research universities distinguishes between R1 and R2 schools. The well-known U.S. News & World Report Rankings separate national universities from regional ones, and also from national liberal arts colleges. Continue Reading...

September 21, 2023

Pushing Back Against the New Deal in Real Time

The American Institute of Economic Research has published an anthology of critics of the New Deal, New Deal Rebels, complete with more than 50 brief commentaries and excerpts. The book is edited by contemporary economic historian Amity Shlaes, herself a prominent New Deal critic, whose The Forgotten Man is perhaps the most comprehensive work memorializing the mistakes of that era. Continue Reading...

September 20, 2023

The Wheel of Time: A Postmodern LOTR?

The Wheel of Time is a series of 14 novels by Robert Jordan, which debuted in 1990. You may never have heard of them, but they’ve sold 100 million copies and add up to more than 4 million words. Continue Reading...

September 19, 2023

Cities: An Engine of Progress and Civilization

What is progress? How and where does it occur? Such questions are not easy to answer. Debates about the nature of progress have given rise to entire theories of historical development. Continue Reading...

September 17, 2023

On Constitution Day, Celebrate the Anti-Federalists

Constitutional questions used to be intellectually serious, steeped in competing traditions, and shaped by schools of thought often rooted in divergent interpretations of the American past. No more. Now we get pressing questions like, “Can Trump run for president from prison?,” Continue Reading...

September 15, 2023

The Basic Principles of Wealth Creation Have Not Changed

The need for economic education has never been more apparent. In an inflationary economy with housing costs outpacing first-time homebuyer budgets, banking collapses, and a popping tech bubble, the need for sound economics is self-evident. Continue Reading...

September 14, 2023

Why Philosophy? Reflections on Fides et Ratio.

“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth.” Continue Reading...

September 13, 2023

Is the Tide Turning on Religious Belief?

In the latter half of the 19th century, the poet Matthew Arnold, on his honeymoon, was walking with his bride along the rocky shoreline of the English Channel as the tide was going out. Continue Reading...

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