Can We Believe? by Andrew Klavan

Can We Believe? by Andrew Klavan

It is the Enlightenment Narrative that creates this worship of reason, not reason itself. In fact, most of the scientific arguments against the existence of God are circular and self-proving. They pit advanced scientific thinkers against simple, literalist religious believers. They dismiss error and mischief committed in the name of science—the Holocaust, atom bombs, climate change—but amberize error and mischief committed in the name of faith—“the Crusades, the Inquisition, witch hunts, the European wars of religion,” as Pinker has it.

I absolutely love his argument about the worship of reason as pitted against revelation. I'm thankful that as a believer, I have access to both.

Rethinking President Grant (Part Two) By Dan McLaughlin

Rethinking President Grant (Part Two) By Dan McLaughlin

On the strength of his military record, Ulysses S. Grant was one of our greatest Americans, and his presidency should be seen as an addition to that legacy, not an embarrassment. Grant’s flaws deserve to be remembered. He probably could not have done much more to build public support for continuing Reconstruction after 1876, but he could have done more to prevent corruption, respect religious liberties, win the debate over Dominican annexation, and avoid the catastrophe at Little Bighorn. The corruption scandals of Grant’s tenure were far less important in the long run than his policy record, which they should not be allowed to overshadow, but they did interfere with his ability to do the job by handicapping his Supreme Court nominations, his Reconstruction and Native American policies, and even his efforts to annex Santo Domingo.

 In the end, though, Grant buried secession and slavery for good, kept the peace abroad, laid the building blocks for a long-term Anglo–American alliance, oversaw the nation’s turn down the path to economic-superpower status, and can claim both the Fifteenth Amendment and the modern Justice Department as important milestones in his legacy. That’s a record any president would be proud of.

This is why I love history. These are real people and their record is nuanced and interesting.

No, Today’s America Would Not Surprise The Founders In The Least by Benjamin R. Dierker

No, Today’s America Would Not Surprise The Founders In The Least by Benjamin R. Dierker

Putting aside that they understood the concept of innovation, and even had repeating firearms, this group of men understood something far more fundamental: human nature. Baked into virtually every meticulously crafted line of the Declaration, Constitution, Federalist Papers, and treatises of the day was a recognition that man has both incredible capacity for cooperation and devastating potential for destruction. Equipped with knowledge of history and of human nature, the Founders had possibly the greatest predictive power of any group of people throughout history.

I hat when people say, "The Founders could never had imagined..." It's simply not true. They had greater imaginations and the power to predict because they so well understood immutable human nature.

Rethinking President Grant (Part One) By Dan McLaughlin

Rethinking President Grant (Part One) By Dan McLaughlin

If history is just current events plus time, then biased and unfair history is bad journalism plus time. Both as a general and as president, Grant spent a lot of time on the receiving end of bad journalism and, later, bad history. Grant’s place in U.S. history would be secure if we looked only at his Civil War record. But for much of the 20th century, Grant was found near the bottom of historical rankings of presidents and maligned in schoolbooks for corruption, assessments that often said more about Grant’s critics than about Grant. As we reevaluate him today with a fairer perspective, we should see Grant as, on balance, a good president. He wrestled earnestly with intractable problems and made some lasting contributions. But he falls short of the greats: Too many of his major accomplishments failed to endure after he left office, and his blind spots were too glaring.

I love a rethinking of a historical figure as we step back and try to see him in more nuanced colors.

The Constitution Was Never Pro-Slavery By Allen C. Guelzo

The Constitution Was Never Pro-Slavery By Allen C. Guelzo

To read the Constitution as pro-slavery, in the manner of Finkelman, Waldstreicher, and even Sanders, requires a suspension of disbelief that only playwrights and morticians could admire. Yes, the Constitution reduced slaves to the hated three-fifths; but that was to keep slaveholders from claiming them for five-fifths in determining representation, which would have increased the power of the slaveholding states. Yes, the Constitution permitted the slave trade to continue; but it also permitted Congress to shut it off, which it did in 1808. Yes, the Constitution banned export taxes, required “full faith and credit,” and limited “privileges and immunities” to citizens. But the debates over those provisions betrayed no inkling that the hidden subject was slavery. And the accusation that the militia clause was meant to suppress slave insurrections was actually only a speculation tossed off at one moment of energetic accusation by Gouverneur Morris, not a deliberately conceived strategy by scheming slaveholders.

Another brilliant analysis by Guelzo, one of my favorite historians.

Are We Too Primitive to Rebuild Notre Dame? by John Zmirak

Are We Too Primitive to Rebuild Notre Dame? by John Zmirak

But I fear we don’t even want such beauty enough to recreate it. It frightens us with its demands. As God does, which explains why we flee Him. We’d rather keep our eyes firmly fixed on the husks that we feed to the pigs than think about the Father.

Watch, just watch. If some devout billionaire, or kindly non-Catholic French patriot, donated every dollar of the billions it would cost, you know what some bishop would say? He’d echo the words of one of the Church’s very first bishops: “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”

A sad post-Notre Dame commentary on European Christianity.

The Division of Labor Is the Meaning of Life By Kevin D. Williamson

The Division of Labor Is the Meaning of Life By Kevin D. Williamson

What we call “globalization” is a sudden radical expansion in the worldwide division of labor—a miracle of human cooperation that, as such miracles so often are, goes mostly unappreciated and unloved, and often hated. Our globalization is hated for the same reason that Renaissance globalization was hated: It disrupts existing status arrangements and introduces new elements of insecurity and anxiety into communities whose members had believed their situations to be fixed, if not ordained—and who believe that they have a natural right to the fixity of those situations, and that the duty of the state is to secure them. 

Kevin Williamson always has an original insight into the way of the world. This column is no exception. 

Homer Meets Generation Z By Howard Butcher

Homer Meets Generation Z By Howard Butcher

In today’s environment, engaging students effectively often requires appealing to their self-interest. At the beginning of The Iliad, I ask the girls in the class: How would you feel if an army of men was fighting over you? The girls’ responses differ quite a bit: Some like the idea, but most usually don’t want people to die fighting for them. Then, the next day, the boys are asked: Would you fight a war for a woman? The answers vary, but interestingly, there is often a bit more of a consensus: For the right woman, many would fight. The conversations usually initiate reasonably serious thought and students refine and amend their answers as the class discussion evolves. This approach allows them to imagine the conflict as if they were a character in the text and it becomes a little easier to draw them into the story.

I love when people recognize the benefits of a classical education and of the classic works of antiquity.

Have We Stolen A Generation's Independent Thought? by Peter Greene

Have We Stolen A Generation's Independent Thought? by Peter Greene

We are teaching students, literally, not to think, but instead to clear their own thoughts and concentrate on following the path followed by the people who wrote the test questions. We are teaching them that every question has just one right answer, that somebody out there already knows it, and that you go to school to learn to say what those people want you to say. 

Interesting thoughts on high-stakes testing and the effect on students ability to think in original terms.

What the Electoral College Saves Us From By Dan McLaughlin

What the Electoral College Saves Us From By Dan McLaughlin

If we think of the Electoral College as a way of ensuring a decisive result in the absence of a national popular majority, and election by the House as the fallback only when both of those options fail, it makes a lot more sense. Splits between the popular vote and Electoral College winners will practically always be very rare when one candidate gets a popular majority

Good defense of the Founders' wisdom in creating the Electoral College.

Teach Classical Students To Pray Classically by Joshua Gibbs

Teach Classical Students To Pray Classically by Joshua Gibbs

My plea is simple: teach your students to read classically, to write classically, to think classically, and to pray classically. Give your students books worth reading ten times and prayers worth saying ten times. Give your students prayers worth memorizing. Give your students these prayers by praying them at the beginning and end of class every day. Teach your students great prayers, prayers which deepen in meaning and slowly come into focus over the period of a lifetime. If great music is worth practicing, so are great prayers; teach your students prayers worthy of practice, worthy of concentration. Pagans repeat their prayers so the gods will finally hear, but Christians repeat their prayers so they can finally hear themselves.

I love this idea so much! I will definitely incorporate this into my class next year!