Two arguments for a better ice cream shop
1. Marx 2. Berry Good localists do not simply fetishize the familiar for its own sake. They also aren’t totalizing some…
1. Marx 2. Berry Good localists do not simply fetishize the familiar for its own sake. They also aren’t totalizing some…
David Cameron is crystallizing his agenda. We’ve all been wondering what a post-Thatcherian Conservative PM would look like, and now…
Everyone is getting their shot at a Philip Blond point right now: the Brooks column, Deneen and Rod the Bod…
A few weeks ago, I got into a discussion with a friend—via Facebook message, of course—about the pros and cons of social media. We have all of the basic conservative, intellectually inclined, Christian, rooted-in-Western-civilization stuff in common, so in general the conversation proceeded along fairly predictable lines.
Social media are problematic because they tend to replace genuine human relationships, which grow out of common experiences and life lived together, with virtual ones, maintained through wall posts and status updates. On the other hand, networking websites like Facebook and Twitter can foster already existing relationships, helping friends and family separated by geography communicate with each other in real time. So social media can be helpful tools, but they need to be used properly; it’s okay to be friends with your mom on Facebook, but it’s not okay if that’s your only interaction with her, et cetera et cetera and so forth. It was an interesting intellectual exercise, but for the most part, we’ve heard this all before.
In the course of the conversation, however, my friend made an almost offhand observation that made me think about the whole problem in a new context.
Recently, I discovered a new mixed-use development downtown. There were upscale-looking row houses lining intimate streets with wide sidewalks. The…
I read two articles this morning. The first was from Charles Krauthammer on whether President Obama may have finessed policy…
Various traditions in subsequent American political history have rejected Tocqueville’s distinction. The Confederate states rejected it, arguing for an ideological…
I am developing a post on the limits of free market thinking, an area where Humane Pursuits and Front Porch…
Recent conversations here have dealt frequently with “big government,” and with a chic alternative to big government in both its FDR and Bush varieties, namely Front Porch Republic localism.
Conservatives, in reaction to Rousseauean liberalism, have become good at understanding how the government ends up becoming a deified abstraction….