Author: Thomas Fleming

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Free Content

11 Jan, 2019

McGrath and Fleming, Part II

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Tom, I, too, am stunned by the decline of literacy among the literate classes, which is far more disappointing to me than the general decline.  Kids growing up today don’t have the people in the profession–whether the media, academe, or writers–we had to learn from.  After a discussion about writing essays and grammar in one of my classes back in the 90s a couple of older students came up to me.  They were both women who had come back to school to earn teaching credentials and master’s degrees after rearing families.  They had grown up when English was properly taught...

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Free Content

8 Jan, 2019

A Dialogue on the Decay of English, by Roger McGrath and Thomas Fleming

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I received this message from Prof. McGrath in response to my columns on learning foreign languages. Tom: For what it’s worth, I took French in high school and Latin in college.  I think Latin teaches one a surprising amount about the English language or perhaps reminds one of all those things that we were supposed to learn in the 7th and 8th grade–when English teachers emphasized parts of speech, diagramming sentences, tense, mood, et al. During my years playing professor I noticed a slow but steady decline in the writing skills of the average student.  By my final days of teaching...

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Free Content

8 Jan, 2019

Should Students Read T.S. Eliot?

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Dear Autodidact: Question for you. T. S Eliot is one of my favorite poets. ( I have read and re-read many of his poems) Most friends of mine aren’t as enthusiastic about him. I’ve often heard people say that he “killed poetry” with his “Modernist” style. This is also the view of a number of conservative professors I know (none is  a literary scholar, though) Do you think there’s any truth to this claim? I tend to read poetry for its meaning, not its style (so Eliot’s style doesn’t bother me much) A Catholic College Student Dear Catholic College Student,...

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Fleming / Free Content

7 Jan, 2019

Direct Election: A Grave Threat to Republics

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John Seiler has posted a sensible column on why the electoral college is not going to disappear in a puff of smoke.  He points out that one of the great compromises that made the Constitution possible is an electoral system that protects the interests of smaller states without eliminating all the advantage enjoyed by larger states.  There is, however, another aspect of the electoral college that is worth looking at:  the principle of indirect election.

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Feature / Fleming / From Under The Rubble

5 Jan, 2019

The Future Belongs to Them

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The freshman Democrats in Congress are behaving like the stars of a down-market reality TV show.  Alexandria—like Cher and Madonna, she really doesn’t need a last name—has been dancing up a storm, though many of her supporters have been disappointed by her lumbering performance.  

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Free Content

1 Jan, 2019

Sicilian Trog, Part II

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This is the long-awaited Part II of my Agrigento Trog There is hardly a better place in Europe—not even Athens—were the differences between the ancient and the modern world can be felt so acutely.  20th century Agrigento is, at its best, a tribute to the greed and and contempt for humanity that have characterized modern governments that are the distilled essence of democratic man.  The local government is hopelessly inept at carrying out the most basic tasks—picking up trash, policing traffic, cracking down on organized crime.  And yet, good democratic socialists that they are, they have imposed new rules on...

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Autodidact

30 Dec, 2018

How To Learn—and Not to Learn—a Foreign Language, Part III:  Grammar

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“I’ve grammar and spelling for two And blood and behavior for twenty. In studying any new language, the two most basic elements are the proper pronunciation, meaning—and of course spelling—of words, in other words ‘vocabulary,’ and grammar.  In simple English, while the study of vocabulary focuses attention on individual words, grammar consists of the rules that determine the form (morphology) and function or structure (syntax) of words. The arbiters of Postmodern English have tried their best to eliminate prescriptive grammar—that is, the normative rules of language usage—from our speech, but few other European languages have been so thoroughly revolutionized.  The...

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Best Revenge / Fleming

27 Dec, 2018

Trog 6

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Most of us Americans, by the time we reach a certain age, have grown used to living in our own houses with our own families and under our own rules.  Travel upsets all our  arrangements, and in hotels we are subjected to other people’s arguments and, what is worse, to other people’s children.  Here in Agrigento, we have our own little house, which is really just two apartments that make up one building.  But, for all the privacy we have, we are still on other people’s property. The other people are used to strangers, since they operate a very nice...

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Feature / Fleming / From Under The Rubble

24 Dec, 2018

Imperialism From the Cradle to the Grave, Conclusion

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In the bad old days of previous centuries and millennia,  conquering nations trashed the civilizations they occupied for diverse reasons.  (I am not now speaking of looting, which can sometimes be a back-handed token of esteem.) Some savages and barbarians just like breaking things.  Since they cannot create, they can at least destroy.  Sometimes it is to teach a lesson.  “You think you Jews can play power-politics by making an alliance with the Egyptians?  Watch this!”  Sometimes, the point is to destroy symbols and traditions to which the conquerors object on moral grounds:  Cortez was a ruthless man, but the...