The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary
At this point in the argument, I want to make it plain that I am not trying to write even a brief history of political universalism. My basic intent is to show some of the more important influences—influences, I wish to emphasize, that I do not necessarily criticize much less condemn. So far, I have briefly mentioned the Stoic ideal of world-citizenship, which was transformed into a more restrained celebration of the Imperium Romanum as an ideal of human community rooted in justice. The disintegration of the Empire, rather than discrediting the imperial ideal, invested it with spiritual significance. I...
Like all Southern Californians, I’m working on a screenplay. The latest is titled “Che and Cher.” It’s about a fictional meeting in 1965 when Che Guevara divines deep meaning in the new hit “I Got You Babe,” and, avoiding CIA hit teams, sneaks up to Hollywood to meet Cher. Not Sonny. Just kidding. If you are unfortunate enough to live in Southern California, the media are even more saturated with celebrity nonsense than the national media. Along with high taxes, it’s one of the things we have to put up with to enjoy the soporific weather. One of the latest...
Though its trunk appeared to have died some twenty years ago, this year the Oak of Abraham has actually fallen. Beneath the five-thousand-year-old tree, better known as the Oak of Mamre and found on the grounds of the Holy Trinity Monastery in Palestine, is where Abraham invited the three angels to rest, as recounted in Genesis.
Poor Robert de Niro is still the pale-faced teenage punk Bobby Milk, too dumb and too lazy to finish high school or find a job anywhere but in the make-believe world of Hollwyood movies.
France’s anti-Christian ruling class lament the fire that damaged a valuable symbol of their government’s subjugation of Christianity
Conservatives are upset that Middlebury College has cancelled a conservative speaker, allegedly out of concern for safety. The safety angle shows how utterly degradingly stupid college officials have become. Of course, any rational person despises Middlebury for this and a thousand other crimes. But, let us take a breath and reflect.
News of Sir Roger Scruton’s dismissal has not been overlooked by our eagle-eyed commander-in-chief, though in and of itself the British government’s decision to drop the controversialist – indeed, like the position he was occupying – is not worth the ministerial paper it’s written on. Scruton was there to “advise” architects on how to build buildings that look like something other than the monstrous carbuncle on the face of a beloved friend of Prince’s Charles’ memorable phrase, and yet it is quite clear that this role, more than anything that has actually been built since he took it up, was...
While Wordsworth was something of a radical in his early years, he settled down into a comfortable but apparently sincere Anglican faith. His Ecclesiastical Sonnets are not, it goes without saying, among his best read works, but they are carefully, even elegantly written.
If family ties and local patriotism mean little, then the Stoic should regard all men as his fellow-citizens. He should be a cosmopolites—a citizen of the world. Like most of the harsher teachings of the Stoics, cosmopolitanism is easier to mouth than to practice. So austere a Stoic as Cato the younger was able to hand off his wife to a friend, but he could not cease to be a Roman patriot who preferred death to living under a dictator who, among other sins, cultivated the friendship of foreigners.
This isn’t about national security. It’s about politics – dirty politics of the dirtiest kind.
