The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary

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Andrei Navrozov / Free Content / Wednesday's Child

5 Jun, 2019

Wednesday’s Child:The Quietist Manifesto

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I had insomnia the other night, and it so happened that my son, who leads what I suspect is a dissolutely sleepless life in London, engaged me in correspondence about a Russian poem we both knew.  He wrote that he had tried to translate it into English, but “it kept coming out as a string of banalities.”  So I spent the remaining small hours of the night trying to prove my son wrong, to succeed where, in my view, Vladimir Nabokov failed in his translation: Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal the way you dream, the things you feel. Deep...

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Fleming / Free Content

3 Jun, 2019

Liberal Nationalism versus Patriotism

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The words nationalism and patriotism are often confused, and even when political theorists draw a contrast, the result is often a distinction without a difference or a bizarre twist of meaning that defies everyday usage.  The modern concept of nationalism (just like the concept of internationalism) took shape during the French Revolution, which implemented Rousseau’s theory of the general will and continued the process of centralization inaugurated by the monarchy.   According to 19th century nationalists, the will of the nation, defined as an historic community of blood and tongue, had to find expression in a common and unified state. ...

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Charles Yost / Feature

3 Jun, 2019

Photios, the Franks, and the Filioque, Part II

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Ever since Charlemagne had smashed the Avars at the eastern marches of his expanding realm, agents of the Frankish empire had begun infiltrating into the northern Balkans, including the lands inhabited by the Slavic tribe of the Moravians (the ancestors of the Czechs and Slovaks). Among these agents were missionaries, for the empire of Charlemagne was a Christian empire, the true Israel in the fancy of his court theologians, and the progress of the Gospel must keep pace with the expansion of boundaries into heathendom. There was bound to be a conflict then, when heathendom meant not only the Germanic...

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FF / Free Content / Heiner

30 May, 2019

A Restoration, perhaps?

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I stopped by Notre Dame this week to find it completely encircled by high temporary construction walls.  One day it’s open for you to visit almost anytime you wish.  The next day it’s closed indefinitely, with life for the residents and businesses on Ile de la Cité altered considerably.  Yet there was good news the other day, with lawmakers pushing for a restoration “as it was” in opposition to the hubristic “architectural competition” that was to add a second torture to the loss.  No need to remake something that didn’t need to be remade.  Perhaps some may even consider the...

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Uncategorized

30 May, 2019

Poems: Songs by Thomas Campion

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Campion was a practicing physician and was among the finest song-writers of the elizabethan-Jacobean era.  He was both a poet and a composer, who in later years was known primarily as a music theorist.   The first poem is a song loosely based on a Horatian ode.  The second is a translation from Catullus.  I have provided links to Lumiarium.com for recordings.

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Feature

29 May, 2019

The House on the Rock by Ken Rosenberger

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One weekend in May, Mark Beesley, who has playing host to Ken Rosenberger (Atlanta) and Robert (Geraci) lured them–dragging the Flemings in tow with the promise of beer and cheese in Monroe (Wisconsin) to the “world-famous” House on the Rock.  Here is a brief account made by one of the victims, Ken Rosenberger.

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All Paid Subscribers / Andrei Navrozov / Wednesday's Child

29 May, 2019

Wednesday’s Child: Of Means and Motives

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In at least one respect the gentle reader must give Wednesday’s Child his due.  In nearly 200 posts in this space, no mention has ever been made of “Mueller” or “Mueller’s investigation.”  That is because I seek to protect the gentle reader from inconsequential twaddle, political banality, and useless names as I myself dream of being protected by some supernatural entity from all such unwelcome intrusion. However, grand jury indictments resulting from the investigation so incautiously mentioned above are unlike the investigation itself, in that they are not, as the Russians say, just “grinding water in a mortar.”  Some world-class...

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All Paid Subscribers / Feature / Seiler

28 May, 2019

Yes, Andrew Yang Has a $12,000 Yearly Bonanza for You

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One of the benefits of the presidential primaries is ideas sometimes percolate to the surface. That’s the case with Andrew Yang and his $1,000 monthly Universal Income. Every citizen, from Jeff Bezos, worth $100 billion (after the divorce), and the homeless guy on the street corner would get a bank deposit of $1,000 a month. This is an old idea. Back in 1972, Democratic Nominee George McGovern promised $1,000 a year to everybody. According to the government’s inflation calculator, that comes to $6,218, about half Yang’s amount. But if you go by the price of gold, it was $72 in...

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Free Content

27 May, 2019

Two War Poems by John Streeter Manifold

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John Manifold was an Australian poet who fought in the European theater during World War II.  I read the first long ago in an anthology, and it has always served to remind me that fine and vigorous formal verse could still be written in the middle of the 20th century.  It is a pity that he is not read more outside of Australia, where is or was something of a hero.