The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary
Wednesday’s Child: Down the Babbitt Hole
The lively discussion prompted by last week’s post, as well as the post itself, lacked an important ingredient, namely, some kind of connection to the present. A backward glance is all very well, but what of the Babbitts of today and tomorrow?
Attention, Please
If there are readers who wish to resume the study of Italian, please respond to this announcement. And, if there is interest in beginning the study of ancient or modern Greek, please also let us know.
Riding the Red Horse
Refusal to fight may be cowardice and treason that darkens the soul of a single man, but the opposite mistake—an impetuous and reckless decision to make unnecessary war—may cost the lives of millions.
Babbitt, Hobbit, Rabbit
It is difficult to overestimate the influence of the all but forgotten Sinclair Lewis novel in the period between the two world wars, a stampede of adulation which culminated in the Nobel Prize in Literature awarded to the author, the first American to receive it.
Metaphysical Conservatives, Conclusion
We have to deal with historical man, not the abstract man projected by libertarian economists, Marxist-Straussian theorists, or city-on-a-hill religious fanatics. Conservatives should always be on guard against the presumption that they have all the answers.
Metaphysical Conservatives, Part One of Two
These musings on metaphysics and property, here revised and corrected, were first published in a magazine, when there was a magazine where such foolishness could be printed.
Poem: North of Arezzo
A poem written long ago in a style and vein that might have pleased the subject, Peter Russell.
The American Freak Show
Every morning in Rome, I scanned the America news from my cellular telephone, and, as Donald Trump’s cabinet appointments rolled by, I felt as if I were watching a parade of freaks
