CATEGORY: SOCIETY (28 min)
“We live in a very interesting age,” Carl Trueman declares in a new video essay in First Things.
The big question we face: Do contemporary notions of what it means to be human give us any firm ground upon which to build a society?
Professor Trueman has his doubts. And he lays them out here in with gripping, devastating thoughtfulness.
The criminalization of language . . . the primacy of feelings . . . the decline of the family, the nation, and churches . . . all point towards a culture that is crumbling.
Is there hope? What can we build when everything is dissolving?
Trueman finds inspiration, and a model for action, in a source that might surprise you.
(And no—that’s not a typo in the opening paragraph. This is IR’s first ever video essay, and it is a treat! Beautifully shot, elegantly scripted . . . you need to watch it for yourself).
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CATEGORY: MEDIA (9 min)
Quick question: what’s the biggest crisis unfolding in contemporary America today?
If you answered, “the Current Thing,” you are correct!
And that’s a big problem, argues Adam Ellwanger in The American Conservative. Because the Current Thing is whatever our liberal elites decide it is . . .and because it then becomes the only thing, “the issue among issues.”
#MeToo . . . Covid . . . January 6 . . . Ukraine . . . and who could forget systemic racism?
Everything in our discourse follows from that.
And counterintuitively, once something becomes the Current Thing it moves beyond debate. After all, only a dangerous idiot would question it!
You’ve surely been irritated by Current Thingism. But you might not recognize how and why it poses a threat to our system of government . . .
. . . or why this alarmism is actually a sick form of self-reassurance.
Find out all that and more, right here.
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October 13 will be a night to remember.
At ISI’s sixteenth annual Gala for Western Civilization in Washington, D.C., you and hundreds of other ISI friends and supporters will partake in an evening that will be unforgettable.
This year ISI will be showcasing top academic talent across three disciplines: political theory, economics, and history. We want to provide our alumni and supporters with an opportunity to experience some of the greatest conservative minds of our generation. The evening’s speakers include:
- Chair of the Department of History at the University of Dallas, Susan Hanssen, who will give the keynote address
- The William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Government, Harvey C. Mansfield, who will receive ISI’s Charles H. Hoeflich Lifetime Achievement Award
- Merton P. Stoltz Professor of Economics at Brown University, Glenn Loury, who will receive ISI’s Faculty Award
It should be a wonderful evening full of great conversation.
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Because our student editors and writers are bravely bringing conservative ideas to their campuses, we’re highlighting their efforts here.
Theology: More than Just a Core Requirement via The Georgetown Review
Lincoln, the Constitution, and Abortion via The Lone Conservative
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CATEGORY: SOCIETY(6 min)
Carl Trueman’s video essay describes the weakening role that country, church, and family play in our lives.
This excerpt from Robert Nisbet’s classic The Quest for Community spells out just how much is at stake in that decline.
Totalitarianism, Nisbet explains, originates not in a top-down dictator but in the creation of “the masses.”
Who are the masses? Pure individuals—people who have been stripped of “all social and cultural relationships within which human beings gain their normal sense of membership in society.”
Into that vacuum of meaning and authority steps the totalitarian ruler.
“What remains, then,” Nisbet asks, “but to rescue the masses from their loneliness, their hopelessness and despair, by leading them into the Promised Land of the absolute, redemptive State?”
The story of Russia in the 20th century was of the brutal annihilation of pre-existing social and cultural relations in order to create the masses.
That’s not our problem here, Nisbet implies (and Trueman would agree). Our problem here is that we are creating our masses, ourselves.
It’s a short excerpt, but so powerful. If you want to better understand the nature of totalitarianism . . . and the unique perils we face in America today . . . read on.
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Thought of the Day:
“By giving the government unlimited powers, the most arbitrary rule can be made legal; and in this way a democracy may set up the most complete despotism imaginable.”
— F.A. Hayek
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Who We Are, What We Do
Too many college students feel isolated or attacked for questioning the ever-narrowing range of debate on campus.
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