Household Management, Cultivation, and Invisible Hands

Some things I've been pondering lately. The word "economy" comes from the Greek word oikonomíā which means "household management." The root of the word is inherently familial; family is the source of economics. Implicitly there seems a "sense of smallness". One doesn't immediately imagine an empire when one thinks of "family." One imagines a father …

Religious Agrarians and Atheistic Industrialists

The Angelus, by Jean-François Millet I’ve been loving the Front Porch Republic the last few months. It's a shame it took so long to discover them. This article from Mark T. Mitchell was quite good. Below is a particularly poignant passage. The agrarian is guided by gratitude. He recognizes the giftedness of creation and accepts …

Who can take up small farming, if they wanted to?

From WikiMedia Commons Here is another critique of "The Hobbit Party" by Jonathan Witt and Jay Richards (W&R). The first one is here talking about Tolkien and Distributism. Throughout the book, Witt and Richards make offhanded comments that sound good if one already accepts their modern Capitalist/Libertarian narrative. For example, while extolling the awesomeness of …

Tolkien and Distributism

Sheep in the Warwick countryside, UK: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sheep_Warwick_02.jpg So I've been suffering the self-inflicted pain of reading through "The Hobbit Party" by Jonathan Witt and Jay Richards (W&R). It's a book by a couple of libertarians economists1 who try to argue that J.R.R. Tolkien believed basically the way they do; Capitalist economics. (No, you read that …

Holly Ordway – The next big Tolkien scholar

I just finished reading a wonderful book. It is called Tolkien's Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages by Holly Ordway. It is the first in the new Word on Fire Academic publishing imprint. Her thesis challenges the claim that J.R.R. Tolkien "read very little fiction, and took no serious notice of it." The claim …

Víctimae pascháli laudes immolent Christiáni

Víctimae pascháli laudesimmolent Christiáni. Agnus redémit oves:Christus ínnocens Patrireconciliávit peccatóres. Mors et vita duélloconflixére mirándo:dux vitae mórtuus, regnat vivus. Dic nobis María,quid vidísti in via?Sepúlcrum Christi vivéntis,et glóriam vidi resurgéntis Angélicos testes,sudárium et vestes.Surréxit Christus spes mea:praecédet vos in Galilaéam. Scimus Christum surrexíssea mórtuis vere:tu nobis, victor Rex, miserére. Amen. Alleluia! Christians, to the Paschal …

Read History Like the Perpetrator, not the Hero

I don’t remember where, but Jordan Peterson once said something to the effect that too many of us read history as the heroes. We read about Nazi Germany and think “I totally would have helped hide Jews” or read about Stalinist Russia and think “Why were those people so clueless to not see where this …

Is there an inextricable link between private property and freedom?

In the debate between Distributists and Capitalists, there is a question that I’m beginning to think needs to be answered before either side can make headway with the other. The question is the title of this post: Is there an inextricable link between private property and freedom? From what I can tell, it seems both …

Jacob Imam Quote

"I am not advancing that everyone should return to the land (but given that those in Feudal societies ate very well, had greater festivals, prayed more, had no need of a welfare system, and hardly paid any taxes at all—it shouldn’t be ruled out.)" Christian Economics 101: No Allowances

Pope Francis on the Ideology of Gender

Yet another challenge is posed by the various forms of an ideology of gender that “denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual differences, thereby eliminating the anthropological basis of the family. This ideology leads to educational programmes and legislative enactments that promote a …

Is Middle-earth morally simplistic?

Peter Paul Rubens - Saint Michael expelling Lucifer and the Rebellious Angels, 1622 One of the criticisms sometimes brought against the sub-creation of J.R.R. Tolkien, Middle-earth, is that it is morally simplistic. This criticism seems so self-evidentially absurd that it's difficult to write a response to it. For one thing, this criticism was leveled against …

J.R.R. Tolkien on the Purpose of Life

"So it may be said that the chief purpose of life, for any one of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks. To do as we say in the Gloria in Excelsis: Laudamus te, …

The Lord of the Depraved: Amazon wants Westeros, not Middle-earth

"'Christopher was far more interested in preserving legacy than money.'  The movie-making business is a money-making business and it will do what needs to be done for those ends alone....If worshiping the modern dysfunctional view of sex means turning some characters gay or adding depraved sex scenes, then that’s what it will do." I wrote …

Historian Tom Holland examines the myth of ‘pagan’ Christmas

One thing for which I have little patience is Christians who refuse to celebrate Christian holidays because of "pagan" roots. I've written about this phenomenon before. The logic employed to say such things would receive an F on a college term paper. For example, too often the anti-holiday crowd uses the logical fallacy that correlation …

Pope Francis on living with eternity in mind

We know that it happens that, unfortunately, we forget the purpose of our life, that is, the definitive appointment with God, thus losing the sense of expectation and making the present absolute. When one makes the present absolute, he or she looks only to the present, losing the sense of expectation, which is so good, …

More bad reasons against voting third party

First off, let me say that I love Matt Fradd. I love his show and his humor and his cool Australian accent. I love his humility and his love for his fellow man and his charitable interviews and his desire for truth. I love the Pints With Aquinas podcast and will continue to be a …

Republicans are not Allowed to Dislike Third Parties

The Republican Party was a third party when it was formed in 1854. Abraham Lincoln was the first man from that party to become president in 1860. Like it or not, for good or for bad, the Republican Party changed U.S. history. Why can't something like that happen again? At the very least, Republicans can't …

Fratelli Tutti – An Encyclical for Our Times

I am caring less and less what others have to say about Pope Francis. When I read Pope Francis apart from any secondary commentary, I quite enjoy it and am always challenged to be a better Catholic. Therefore, when his new encyclical Fratelli Tutti was released, I rushed to read it before having the misfortune …

Book Review: Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick J. Deneen

Liberalism has failed because liberalism has succeeded. As it becomes fully itself, it generates endemic pathologies more rapidly and pervasively than it is able to produce Band-aids and veils to cover them. -- Patrick J. Deneen What book would garner endorsements from a spectrum of political opinions, ranging from President Barack Obama and Cornel West …

Is Trump really worth our support?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg died last Friday.  May she rest in peace, and hopefully she prepared her soul for eternity. With the opening of another Supreme Court seat, the presidential election will suddenly be ratcheted up to eleven.  Both sides will now be claiming the need to get "one of our own" into the Supreme Court. So …