The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary
A new branch of agriculture developed in Russia, perhaps to compensate her denizens for the burning forests and poisoned lakes, is called troll farming. The credit for this innovation goes to the man known as “Putin’s chef,” who also has in the commodious pocket of his apron the government contracts for supplying food to public institutions, such as schools and kindergartens, as evidenced recently by mass outbreaks of salmonella among Moscow’s children.
Each generation does what it can in its own time and in its own way. Fundamental principles—political as well as moral—do not change, but the challenges that require a political response are always changing. There is little point in quarreling with the conservatives who defined themselves almost exclusively by their opposition to Communism, an entirely evil political doctrine implemented and reinforced by actions and policies that were equally evil. Nonetheless, whatever their virtues might have been, those defenders of the New Deal status quo had little to say of any use to people of the year 1990, and their attitudes, in...
For some odd reason theoretical debate among conservatives has devolved into the discussions between David French and Sohrab Ahmari. Yet both are gun controllers – therefore not real conservatives. As I often say: Second Amendment, First Freedom. If you can’t own a gun to defend yourself and your family, you’re not free. What good is the rest of the Bill of Rights if you don’t have the arms, personally, to defend those rights? Ahmari, to use older terms, is supposed to be the more “social conservative” of the two. Yet social conservatism (contrasted with “strong defense” conservatism and “economic freedom”...
Political reformers looking to mire America more deeply in corruption and inefficiency have come up with term limits as a care for everything from warts to constitutional liberty.
From almost the day of Reagan’s election, many self-described conservatives were having serious doubts about the usefulness—and sincerity—of the so-called movement and the institutions and publications that were its most public face. Skepticism developed into cynicism and disgust as a set of leftist opportunists—“so-called neoconservatives”—waged a blitzkrieg campaign to take over the movement. When conservative writers and activists welcomed the newcomers as sincere and talented, the reaction of sensible people should have been amused incredulity.
The favorite time to set off fireworks in Palermo is just after lunch, when of course it’s still light out and nobody can see them. “No matter,” muse local worthies, “because everybody can hear them, and that’s the main thing.” It’s a little like publishing books for the blind which are actually abracadabra set in braille and justifying the crazy venture by saying that what’s important is the feeling in the reader’s fingers. The South loves noise. Garbage men make it, opera singers make it, quarreling neighbors make it, and the high point of the symphony season here a few...
Trump’s term in the White House seems to have given Americans a respite from self-congratulatory meditations about being on the “right side” of history. The Obama White House seems to have used the term upwards of two dozen times, according to the American Presidency Project, but Trump has both refrained from such presumptions himself and struck enough fear in the hearts of positivists to get them to shut up about it: at least temporarily
Horace’s satire was a sly commentary on his life among the great, as close friend to Maecenas, the wealthy advisor to Augustus. In the first part of this imitation, Pope imagines his friend Dean Swift, a confidant of the Tory ministers, going over the same complaints about fame and influence. Then, when he comes to Horace’s famous fable of the two mice, he makes a stab at pretending it is composed by his friend Matthew Prior–also an important political advisor and diplomat, who wrote more homely verse. Rather than make a detailed commentary on the poem, I’ll be happy to...
Mr. Van Zant and Mr. Wilson have been talking about light fiction in The Forum. I posted this little bit, which they would probably miss.
What is paleoconservatism? I should have put the question in the past tense, but, in deference to the true believers who collect hula hoops, and 8-track tape players, we can pretend there is still some sort of active movement going by that name. Like many political labels—Whig and Tory, Rebel and Yankee—the word “paleoconservative” would seem to be an insult.
