My Ishmael
Photo of book cover by Tom Murphy.| Do the Math
Augustine passed on to us, and all posterity, prescient words of wisdom: that even in the most disconcerting and dark of times, beauty, compassion, truth, love, and happiness abound. When the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410, the city that had taken the world captive had fallen into captivity. The event was a transformative moment in [...]| The Imaginative Conservative
The right kind of literature has the power to make the immediate visible to us once again.| Front Porch Republic
Insofar as "The Bee" now occupies something near the center of American Christian discourse, what’s crowded out, I think, is an articulated (not just implied-by-negation) path toward holiness . . .| Front Porch Republic
Historian Christopher Clark in Foreign Policy sees the collapse of modernity. What’s really ending is industrial civilisation’s life-cycle. What comes next depends on whether we embrace collapse or renewal.| Age of Transformation
What do I consider to be our worst inventions? Don't let the image fool you. I offer two provisional candidates and five "for real." Continue reading →| Do the Math
In diesem Sommer bietet Bayerns Landeshauptstadt München gleich zwei Ausstellungen zu Stadt und urbanem Leben. Das Münchner Stadtmuseum zeigt mit “What the City. Perspektiven unserer Stadt” eine Ausstellung zu den vielen Städten (bzw. Facetten), in denen sich München als gewachsene Metropole zeigt. Sie reichen von Kunst und Kultur bis hin zu Nachhaltigkeit und der Gestaltung sowie Wahrnehmung durch die MünchnerInnen selbst. Die zweite Ausstellung ist in der Kunsthalle München in der...| Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations
America has long led the world in economic success, entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation. We can and we should lead in human flourishing. To do so, we must invest in the fundamental ingredients of flourishing: marriage and children.| Public Discourse
Only by recognizing the divine mystery that predicates existence in the world can one reclaim his individuality. Only then will he be capable of searching for meaning generated outside the human intellect. Humans can never be gods, but they need God to live meaningful lives. (essay by John Gist)| The Imaginative Conservative
There is a moment, just before arrival, when Sancaklar Mosque is entirely invisible. The sunflower fields thin out. The hum of construction trucks grows louder. Then, a sharp-edged minaret (and nothing more) breaks the horizon. Everything else sinks. Following the slope; downwards instead of upwards. The city has vanished, but something else begins...| Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations
Interviewed by Kristina Jacobsen Kristina Jacobsen: Your book takes up two longstanding interests of anthropology: Indigeneity and modernity. Did you originally set out to study these topics or did…| CaMP Anthropology
I put my dunderheadedness on display as to how I repeatedly missed the net-negative impact written language has had on the living planet. Continue reading →| Do the Math
Rachel Apone: Thank you for this creative, rich, and thought-provoking book! The book offers a fascinating argument about the history of Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and speaks to foundation…| CaMP Anthropology
The statement, “God is useless,” is, undoubtedly, sure to strike someone as an insult, not a statement of a faithful believing Christian (much less, a priest). That reaction tells me much about how we feel about the word, “useless,” rather than how we feel about God. In current American parlance, “useless,” is mostly a term […]| Glory to God For All Things
Dover Beach – (Matthew Arnold, 1867) The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from […]| Glory to God For All Things
We live under the impression that we can do for the human community and the individual human soul what physicists have done with the atom.| Front Porch Republic
The Spiritual Crises of Modernity: From Nominalism to Nihilism A Maurin Academy course with Deacon Christopher May 7 pm CDT live on Zoom on Tuesdays October 08, 15, 22, 29 Reportedly, William Temple, who became the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1942, once asked his father, who was then the Archbishop: “Father, why don’t philosophers rule ... Read more| The Maurin Academy for Regenerative Studies
Welcome to our newsletter, dear readers, • Our first new library item this month is a chapter on the divine play of Hindu/Buddhist deity Chinnamasta, one of the ten goddesses from the esoteric tradition of Tantra, and a ferocious aspect of Mahadevi, the Hindu Mother goddess. Chinnamasta indicates a transcendence of the ordinary and portrays| The Matheson Trust
Newbigin was a sharp but affectionate observer of Western culture, a highly educated insider with an extra layer of perspective that came from almost 40 years lived in India from 1936 to 1974. Soviet leaders regarded science simply as a necessary tool for the implementation of their social planning. The idea that pure science should… Read More »| Driverless Crocodile
Owen Barfield, whom C. S. Lewis described archetypally as his “Second Friend” – “the man who disagrees with you about everything […] not so much the alter ego as the antiself” – on a number of occasions expressed his agreement with the argument of The Abolition of Man, and his admiration of the book. For example, describing various means by which one can become aware of the presuppositions of one’s thoughts, Barfield once wrote: One, of which the best example I know is C. The ...| The Owen Barfield Literary Estate
23| Science Museum Group Journal
Welcome to our newsletter, dear readers. • We open our monthly selection with a page on St Francis of Assisi’s 13th-century “Canticle of the Creatures” (Laudes Creaturarum), also known as “Canticle of Brother Sun,” including a bilingual text, an audio reading of the original and an interpretative essay. This beautiful and brief poem has been| The Matheson Trust
Welcome to our newsletter, dear reader, • We begin our monthly selection with an article about “African Traditional Religion” reflecting on the essential convergence, the unanimity of the many native African religious paths and practices, allowing us to see beyond reductionist and trite labels like animism or pantheism. The Ewe-speaking people speak of Him as| The Matheson Trust
Image from Wikimedia Commons.This is part of a series of posts representing ideas from the book, Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. I view the ideas explored in Ishmael to be so important to the world that it seems everyone should have a chance to be exposed. I hope this treatment inspires you to read the original.| Do the Math
Have I mentioned how important I think Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael is? I reread it recently for the first time in a while, and was again impressed with how many important modernity-challenging ideas are packed into one novel.| Do the Math
The author explores the crisis of meaning within modernity, emphasizing the loss of metaphysical grounding and identity amid neoliberal consumerism. It presents fasting as a transformative practice…| Traversing Tradition
Surfing YouTube, I came across an interview of Ezra Klein by Stephen Colbert. He was promoting a new book called Abundance, basically arguing that scarcity is politically-manufactured by “both sides,” and that if we get our political act together, everybody can have more. Planetary limits need not apply. I’ve often been impressed by Klein’s sharp insights on politics, yet can’t reconcile how someone so smart misses the big-picture perspectives that grab my attention.| Do the Math
Image by Sabrina Belle from Pixabay| Do the Math
Jeffrey Alexander, a prominent sociologist and social theorist: Inside the culture and structure of modernity, good and evil are tensely intertwined. We should not be naïve about the evils of moder…| Economic Sociology & Political Economy
Welcome to our last newsletter of this year, with our wishes for a blessed 2025. • Our first new library addition this month is a selection from the Sutra of the Heap of Jewels, Ratnakuta Sutra, a major ancient collection of Buddhist sutras, which has been called a small encyclopedia of Indian Mahayana Buddhism. “…| The Matheson Trust
Welcome to our newsletter, dear reader, • We begin our monthly selection with an article presenting a choice of ginans, hymns of wisdom (from the Sanskrit jnana) from the Nizari Ismaili tradition. These songs, often recited along ritual prayer, are accorded a near scriptural status, and regarded as conveying in the vernacular the inner meaning| The Matheson Trust
Academically, I am a Political Scientist and a Gardnerian Witch, in both cases for about 40 years. I encountered the Craft soon after gaining my Ph.D. at Berkeley. I cut my ideological teeth as a young conservative in high school … Read more| Gus diZerega
This is the final installment in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. We have arrived at the part where people say: “yeah, but what can I do?” I hope that I can offer solid suggestions that are more satisfying than frustrating. But I’m just winging it, here. Shutting down modernity is not something any of us have experience doing, so w...| Do the Math
The tiresome cant about the work ethic notwithstanding, Americans do not celebrate, or even recognize, the dignity of labor. Although they profess to disdain both the idle rich and the idle poor, they do not at the same time esteem those who must work for a living, even as most count themselves among that number. (essay by Mark Malvasi)| The Imaginative Conservative
Tim Kirby, ideological director at the Center, and Joaquin Flores, director at the Center, debate what the ins and outs of ‘Progressive Imperialism’. Kirby poses the question to Flores “How are pr…| syncreticstudies.com
This is the fourteenth of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. We have arrived at the episode whose concept inspired the name of the series. Though no metaphor can perfectly capture a complex reality, by comparing modernity to metastatic cancer I hope to provide a useful framework that counters the usual modernity-boosting...| Do the Math
This is the thirteenth of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode unpacks the great Wes Jackson aphorism that modern humans are a species out of context. Well, what’s the right context, and how are we out of it?| Do the Math
This is the twelfth of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode confronts the thorny topic of human supremacy. My intention is not to rile folks up, but some of that may be unavoidable. It’s something we must face to understand modernity.| Do the Math
This is the eleventh of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode looks at various reasons why renewable energy and recycling are not our way out of the predicament modernity has set out for us. It’s just a doubling-down that can’t really work anyway.| Do the Math
By C. Ceyhun Arslan. This blog essay examines the relationship between medicine and modernity in three Middle Eastern narrative sources. The author argues that these texts depicted medicine as something that not only heals bodies but also reforms entire societies and brings modernity to their communities. They also emphasized that medical doctors should not only keep up with the Western science; they should also have a good understanding of the local customs.| TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research
This is the tenth of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode confronts the bargaining plea: can’t we keep all the stuff we like about modernity and just get rid of the stuff we don’t like?| Do the Math
This is the eighth of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode provides several ways to develop intuition about the brevity and temporary nature of modernity.| Do the Math
This is the seventh of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode will try (and probably fail) to convey the degree to which Earth’s biodiversity and ecological health are in peril.| Do the Math
This is the sixth of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode makes the point that humans were not inevitable as a culmination of evolution. We are not the purpose or goal of the Earth or universe.| Do the Math
Just so that we can be clear: there is no such thing as a secular world. By that, I mean that there is no such thing as the world-apart-from-God, a world without God, or a world existing in a “neutral zone.” The good God who created the heavens and the earth, sustains all things in […]| Glory to God For All Things
One way to contrast modern sensibilities with Christian sensibilities is to describe the difference between “the good life” and “a good life.” “The good life” is an advertising theme, a photoshoot of the American Dream where all obstacles are overcome through the miracles of technology, market forces, and unfettered freedom. “A good life” is an […]| Glory to God For All Things
In “A Reply to Fasil Merawi’s ‘Overcoming Eurocentrism’” (2024), Alexandra Hofmänner develops an analysis of my article “Overcoming Eurocentrism: Exploring Ethiopian Modernity Through Entangled…| Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective
This is the fifth of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode extends the point from Episode 3 that we owe almost everything to life that came before us. All our senses and capabilities are inherited. We would be nothing without our older brothers and sisters on this planet.| Do the Math
This is the fourth of about 17 in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous episode afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode addresses the more subtle and under-appreciated aspects of evolution, which acts on the whole community of life in full ecological context.| Do the Math
This is the third in the Metastatic Modernity video series of about 17 installments (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous episode afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode stresses that humans are nothing without the menagerie of single-celled pioneers whose many clever solutions to life we still utterly depend on today.| Do the Math
I am excited to announce a new effort that will attempt to provide a crucial set of perspectives on modernity. It is to be a series of video shorts (5–10 minutes is my target) called Metastatic Modernity.| Do the Math
The book is a scholarly yet accessible apologetic for the study of history as an antidote to many modern ills.| An Unexpected Journal
An unwanted party guest attempts to defile an imaginative dinner party of classical thinkers who are presumably friends as they discover the happiness within.| An Unexpected Journal
Michelangelo’s Prisoners changed me.| An Unexpected Journal
This poem is a reflection on knowledge (light, vision), rebellion, and forgetting.| An Unexpected Journal
I caution against categorizing all modern art as ugly before we give it a chance to speak for itself.| An Unexpected Journal
The 19th century was a breakthrough period for secularism.| An Unexpected Journal
What are we to do when a world dies? Where do we gather when the dead body is ours?| An Unexpected Journal
Time for a new paint job on the house?| Do the Math
by Mike Driver “There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two y…| winter oak
As we look toward the uncertain future, it may occur to some among us that we’ll need energy on Mars. How are we going to get it? Presumably Mars has no fossil fuels—although on the plus side its atmosphere is already 95% CO2, compared to Earth’s 0.04%, so they’re likely to be less uptight about carbon emissions on the red planet.| Do the Math
Frands some of you seek trad waifu but there are many traps, much obstacle: the chief one is that institutional meaning of marriage has been taken away legally. Therefore very difficult to speak of “trad marriage,” it might be the most dangerous form of roleplaying in your life. Nietzsche say impossible to base marriage on caprice like passionate sexual love. I believe this and yet this is basis of marriage and any true affair since his time and a little before. The other…social, poli...| Tanner Hauser
Throughout The Double Golyadakin gets himself into trouble because he’s never sure how to express himself in public—outside his own head, or outside his own internal monologue. He doesn’t know how to present himself socially—or, in a contemporary phrasing, he doesn’t know which self to present, struggling as he is with a decaying class system, stagnant bureaucracy, Godlessness, materialism, precarity, and dread—all of which have rendered him incapable of appropriate behavior, or e...| Tanner Hauser
One of my main goals in teaching second-language (L2) Spanish Literature courses is to develop non-traditional tasks that demonstrate the value of reading for the development of the target language…| Rebecca M. Bender, PhD
For many years now, I have made efforts to live differently—initially motivated by a sense of resource limits and the recognition that scaling back could have a dramatic effect if adopted widely. I was able to cut my domestic energy demand by a factor of four or five. I changed my habits of diet, travel, heating/cooling, laundry, showering, consumer activity, and much else.| Do the Math
A post from last year titled The Ride of Our Lives explored the game theory aspect of modernity: those who adopted grain agriculture and new technologies had a competitive advantage over neighbors who didn’t. The “winners” were destined to be those who followed the path that we now call progress.| Do the Math
