The Fleming Foundation

The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary

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Feature / Fleming

18 Feb, 2019

Ideology: Unreason, Antifaith, Part Two

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When people vote their pocketbooks, as they often do, they are giving some color to Marx’s more down-to-earth definition of ideology as a set of ideas concocted to advance the interests of a social class.  The creed of classical liberalism—low taxes, free trade, individual liberty–is the ideology of the well-to-do bourgeoisie, while socialism is the ideology of those who expect to be dependent upon government largesse: schoolteachers, promiscuous young women, and the politicians and public servants, who have so nobly given up brilliant careers in the private sector because they wished to serve the people.  No one claims the ideal...

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Feature / Fleming

16 Feb, 2019

Ideology: Unreason and Anti-Faith, Part One

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What the GOP needs, “Conservatives” tell us, is a sharper ideological focus that will give greater prominence to the vast reservoir of “Conservative”  “ideas.”  If only the “Conservatives” were simply joking, if only they were entirely cynical about the war of words between the two parties, one might have some hope for a restoration of political sanity in this poor country.

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Feature / Seiler

15 Feb, 2019

Abortion Issue Would Win Minorities for Republicans

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Several conservative commentators have noted how the Mainstream Media have given more attention to Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam appearing in blackface in college yearbook three decades ago than to his proposal to allow infanticide. It also was creepy how New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo led cheering legislators as they passed a radical abortion law, which reminded me of Pandemonium in Milton’s “Paradise Lost”: A Dungeon horrible, on all sides round As one great Furnace flam’d, yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible Serv’d onely to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And...

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Andrei Navrozov / Wednesday's Child

13 Feb, 2019

Wednesday’s Child: The Smoking Gun

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“If you want to become an optimist and really understand life,” thought Chekhov, “stop believing the things that are said or written about it and just try seeing it for yourself.”  As I’m down with the ‘flu, and all I’m seeing at the moment are the wooden posts and canopy of my Chinese opium bed, it’s a little difficult to understand just how optimism has wormed its way into that sentence. In the morning my near and dear crowd around the bed like bearded worthies in Rembrandt’s anatomy lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, reproaching me for past crimes against health...

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Feature / Seiler

12 Feb, 2019

AOC’s Green New Deal–It’s Nuttier Than You Think

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AOC is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, my favorite Democrat. She’s the Democrats’ id. In Freudian terms, “The id is the primitive and instinctive component of personality.” As they said in the Freudian Sixties: Let it all hang out. That’s why so many Democrats are endorsing her Green New Deal, best seen in her FAQ here. Adam Schiff took time off from looking for the non-existent Russian rigging of the 2016 election to endorse it, “I have long believed that our country needs an Apollo Project-like commitment to tackle climate change and lead our transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.” Republicans have...

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Feature

11 Feb, 2019

Interview With Anthony V. Bukoski, Part Two

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TJF: I’ve mentioned to you my Uncle Dan who once lived in New Orleans and was a leading expert on port facilities. You’ve been to New Orleans and have spent time in Louisiana. On the one hand, no two places could be more different than Northern Wisconsin and Southern Louisiana. On the other hand, your Southern experiences seem to have been fruitful. . . AVB: I’ve set stories in Superior and Natchitoches, Louisiana, where my wife and I lived when I taught at Northwestern State. One Superior-Natchitoches story appeared in the South Carolina Review, one in New Orleans Review. The...

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Andrei Navrozov / Wednesday's Child

5 Feb, 2019

Wednesday’s Child: The Quiet Hour

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When I was a child, custom required small children to nap for an hour in the afternoon, the Quiet Hour being the accepted euphemism for these postprandial outings in the poppy field.  The rather surprisingly bourgeois practice was also mandatory in Soviet kindergartens, in young pioneer camps, in short, wherever parents, older siblings, or staff wanted to regain a life of their own for at least a portion of the day.  Here in Italy I often think back on that Soviet version of the siesta, which sheds light on a whole variety of goings-on in a country that in so...

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Uncategorized

5 Feb, 2019

The Other Handel Part II by David Wihowski

Dixit Dominus is one of the works Handel composed during his sojourn in Italy. It is a youthful, virtuosic work for five soloists, five-part choir and orchestra (I have performed it with choir and it was exhilarating as well as mentally, physically and emotionally exhausting). This setting of the vesper Psalm 110 (109 Vulgate) runs a gamut of Baroque moods, from melodious  to poignant, from fiery to tranquil.

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Fleming / Free Content

5 Feb, 2019

Governor Northam and His Critics

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I posted this brief comment on Facebook: I have read some “conservatives” on FB calling for support or sympathy for Gov. Northam. This is almost as pathetic as the conservatives who are denouncing him for racism. Red Phillips strikes the right balance–Northam is not worthy either of defense or offense. Since when does an advocate of infanticide deserve sympathy or support from normal human beings? Of course no one in his right mind would join the pile-on (and isn’t it interesting how few conservatives these days are in their right minds!), but imagine Pol Pot or Mao were attacked for...

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Free Content

5 Feb, 2019

1453: The Fall of New Rome

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Watch our most ambitious video. A conservative calendar has more days printed in black than in red letters.  Fortunately, the days of tragedy and loss are remembered as much for the heroism of those who defended the right–Lee at Gettysburg, Leonidas at Thermopylae, the Scots at Culloden.  No day in our history shines more brilliantly in black than the fall of Constantinople in 1453. If you enjoyed this and want to see more, please subscribe at the Gold Level.  If you are already a Gold subscriber, please consider moving up to Charter, and if you are already in that elite...