A collection of 848 posts
If you’re willing to endure the painful trial of self, you will be better for it in the end. And, with enough of us, the world will be better, too.
Without faith or nation, there is no greater whole beyond the individual.
Skateboarding is simple and complex, pointless and transformational.
Bowie’s album beautifully captures the essential romance in the story.
Marie Antoinette was not entirely innocent in her lifetime; in fact, she was guilty of many extravagances.
Fred Willard was a kind of Holy Fool even among fools.
The entire argument was about whether one particular trans ally had become too famous at the expense of more worthy and authentic competitors.
“What’s it about?” is usually the first question we ask when someone recommends a new book, and it’s the wrong question.
A philosophy of optimism was central to the flourishing of the American project. But it’s also useful to consider whether insisting that success and greatness lie around every corner can become a maladaptive response to problems that are complex and brutal.
It often seems like it’s mostly feminists who disparage female work and praise so highly the world of corporate and professional success.
They believe in the perfectibility of man in their own image: a combination of unscrupulous optimism and narcissism.
I honestly have no idea why any actor would want to appear in a serious play featuring protagonists who are not, in some way, “screwed up.”
It was my job to turn a regressive sow’s ear into a progressive silk purse.
Scruton did not entertain petty prejudices, and had no wish to tell anyone how to live or who to love.
Scott Z. Burns’s political thriller ‘The Report’ is a careful examination of the CIA’s interrogation methods.