Podcast: Prof. E.C. Kopff Podcast with John Yost, 13 Min.
This podcast on the importance of humane studies was recorded during the Fleming Foundation’s 2023 Summer School on The Wrong of Rights. In a week or so, the lectures will be on sale.
The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary
“I Got Rights,” Conclusion
Most talk of morality and law is now reduced to a question of rights. Leftists talk about rights to privacy, gender equality, and minority rights, and—more recently—of the right not to be offended by other people’s prejudices, while Libertarians talk about the right of labor and goods to pass unhindered over borders—to say nothing of rights to life and property and the right to say or publish or film anything you like, no matter whom it offends or what moral harm it causes.
Poems by Patrick Kavanagh
“Epic,” published in 1960, is one of my favorite poems published in my lifetime.
“I Got Rights,” Part III (of IV)
Educated Americans believe, for the most part, that revenge–even when it can be excused or mitigated–is always wrong. In legal terms, right—by which I mean the principle of rightness in good behavior—almost always involves the assertion and protection of rights, which are something like the 10 Commandments or Plato’s Ideas or the Natural Law of the Stoics:
Wednesday’s Child: The Rowan Tree
Hoping to find him in a sympathetic rather than critical mood, today I offer the gentle reader an English version of what is arguably the most important poem written in Russia in the last century.
I Got Rights, Part II
Then what does an American citizen do when he discovers that his civil rights are not protected by governments who prefer to protect the universal human rights of illegal alines and criminals? Consider the situation in which the hero of a country song (Hank Williams, Jr.’s, “I Got Rights”) finds himself.
Wednesday’s Child: So Much Fun
Instinctive qualms aside, I should like to say a few words about the role of pornography in modern life. Not from the ethical point of view, as this, on the face of it, is straightforward and makes no distinction between private and public, between a bedroom in Manhattan and a film studio in San Fernando Valley. The moral case is that unless activity of the kind pornography parodies has conception as its specific aim, it is beyond the pale. Once that activity is generalized and the aim obscured, it is no different from theft or fraud.
Rereading Homer III: Conclusion
Since a decisive duel is about to be arranged, Iris–the messenger/rainbow of the gods–flies to Troy to prepare Helen. The face that launched a thousand ships is engaged in the entirely domestic task of weaving, but the design is of the Trojans and Greeks fightin
