The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary
I never liked Robert de Niro as an actor–it’s all just mugging for the camera. I’d rather watch Jerry Lewis. But you gotta admit he’s right on Trump. I mean there is nothing too low for this charlatan, including sucking up to the world’s meanest dictator. And for what? Getting a declaration that the funny little fat guy is going to denuclearize Korea. Who cares. Bring it on. Now, Obama, there was a real negotiator. He knew how to give billions of dollars of paybacks and benefits to Iran and Korea, and so far we haven’t had a war. If...
In the early years of the new millennium I wrote a series of short columns on the political and ethical distortions of language. This bit of fluff, trifling as it is, should be enough to debunk the nonsense of democracy The People, No! Nobody can define democracy–probably nobody wants to–and if any honest man succeeded in defining it, the liars (always in the vast majority of mankind) would stone him to death for his pains. Democracy means, literally, rule by the people or rather, As Roger Scruton puts it (in his very useful Dictionary of Political Thought), “by the people...
Rex Scott tries to stump the boss with big questions. Subscribers are cordially invited to pose their own questions, which will be used in upcoming episodes of this series.
I don’t think Trump, as the Europeans fear, is gearing for a trade war. This is just his typical negotiating style. The Europeans really are freeloaders and trade cheaters who long took advantage of American negotiators. Now they’re feeling like Hillary did on Nov. 9, 2016.
In this second of a two-part mini series on Euripides, Dr. Fleming takes a look at one of Euripides’ plays, Hecuba. What was the lot of women, particularly those involved in the Trojan War, what was the role of blood revenge, and the question of becoming what you chase after are just a few of the themes that Stephen and Dr. Fleming discuss in this episode. Original Air Date: May 2018 Show Run Time: 45 minutes Show Guest(s): Dr. Thomas Fleming Show Host(s): Stephen Heiner The Fleming Foundation · Christianity and Classical Culture, Episode 23: Euripedes, Hecuba Christianity and...
If one were to cut open, the way one saws through a tree trunk, the literary career of Tom Wolfe, in the circles revealed therein one could read the entire history – or, more to the point, the whole tragedy – of what happened to the press in America in the twentieth century. As the writer passed away last month, I want to say a couple of things about him which the gentle reader is unlikely to find in the numerous obituaries. In 1966, after a lengthy struggle, New York’s Herald Tribune – by then the only remaining highbrow competitor...
How blithe each morn was I tae see
My lass come o’er the hill.
She tripped the burn and ran tae me.
I met her wi good will.
Many libertarians and classical liberals regard St. Thomas Aquinas as one of the enemies of liberty, of economic liberty in particular. According to these critics (and to some self-described Thomists), Thomas is supposed to have devised an abstract and systematic theory of an ideal state, which would have the power to regulate the marketplace by establishing a quasi-Marxian “just price” for all goods and by prohibiting all interest on investments. This opinion of Thomas’s economic views is substantially wrong, both in the details and in its overall point of view. Although Thomas was far from being a classical liberal, his moral and political philosophy, once properly understood, gives no support to statism in any form.
The year 1978 was five years after the Roe vs. Wade abortion-on-demand edict of the Supreme Court, a legal and moral outrage still not revoked. And today even children can access the worst pornography on a cell phone. The American birthrate keeps dropping well below the replacement level. Europe is even worse.
In this first of a two-part mini series on Euripedes, Dr. Fleming discusses what (little) we know about Euripedes, his relationship in the mind of the Greeks to Aeschylus and Sophocles, the themes he most frequently considered, and why he’s important for us to study today.
