A Dozen-Plus Stimulants, Gathered for Your Edification and Inspiration
Dear Intelligent American,
. . . Where has last July gone?—if one may quote Mr. Oscar Hammerstein (pardon the scratches). It’s true, that many a new day will dawn—but not too many between now and November 5th, when the Center For Civil Society, publisher of this weekly communiqué, will host its Semiquincentennial-athon conference on Civil Society and America at 250: The Past and Future of What Has Made America Exceptional.
You will want to attend (just look at that terrific agenda), so do sign up. Maybe drop everything and even do that now. OK? (l-a-h-o-m-a!)
The Magnificent Seven, Times Two (and Plus One)
1. At Law & Liberty, Wilfred McClay—calling on the wisdom of the late Michael Oakeshott—explains why free speech is not the only necessity for higher-ed reform. From the piece:
It is not a coincidence that the emptiness and aridity of so much of our era’s cultural and intellectual life comes at a moment when the arts and practices of conversation have become all but extinct. To be sure, people have not stopped talking to one another, even if they now often mistake an exchange of text messages, sent and received hunched over a tiny screen, as “talking,” and seem to prefer restaurants in which attempts at conversation end up like the discourse of platoon sergeants, shouted over the dining room’s racket. But a copious volume of words being exchanged does not translate into that thing called conversation. Particularly in an era in which openness and candor, even between friends, can prove to be dangerous in the long run.
A great deal has been said and written of late about free speech: whether it is even possible, whether it has intrinsic limits, whether it is inherently biased for or against certain groups, or whether it might be more injurious than beneficial to the well-being of a community. These questions all deserve airing. But I think most of us would agree that a greater degree of commitment to freedom of speech on our campuses and in our public life would be a salutary improvement over the walking-on-eggshells environment that we’ve had to endure for far too many years.
But what would be far better is a commitment to the kind of mutuality and breadth that the term “free conversation” implies. Particularly if Michael Oakeshott is right that conversation, as opposed to mere utterance, is such an important feature of our very humanity.
2. At the New York Post, Zachary Marschall says the reform of higher education may be heading South. From the article:
Southern universities’ resolve to defy far-left craziness resonates with prospective college students because the results give young people positive visions of what they can experience on campus, achieve as students and accomplish after graduation.
When learning devolves into activism, education loses its purpose as a tool for practical future success. Seminar discussions and quad gatherings simply won’t translate into good jobs after graduation.
Students fleeing the Northeast are reacting to that disconnect between college as a stagnant, unserious experience versus a real vehicle for future success.
Southern universities are more disposed to traditional approaches to education, which prioritizes civics education and reinforces the campus as a place for cultivating intellectual and spiritual growth.
3. More South: At UnHerd, Joel Kotkin explains why Dixie is winning. From the article:
This marks a huge historical turnaround. Well into the Twenties and Thirties, the South was lagging and losing migrants to the North and the West. Slavery, and then segregation, notes historian Gavin Wright, kept down labor costs and, with them, the incentive for innovation and labor-saving technology. The South was almost its “own country,” as Wright says, a poor appendage to a much richer, more dynamic nation.
But now, the South is capturing cutting-edge industries, drawing in capital as well as a swelling tide of migrants from within the country and abroad. Overall, the southeast quadrant of the country is now the most dominant economic region, and since 2018 has produced almost all the country’s population growth and half its new jobs, according to the Texas Stock Exchange.
By contrast, it’s the Northern and Pacific cities that are pursuing John C. Calhoun-style nullification to resist Washington. And the Trump administration has taken note of this. Recently, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared that “we want the US to be more like Florida and less like New York.” With Gotham about to embrace socialism and a globalized intifada, things look good for Trump Central in Palm Beach, the new favored boomtown for millionaires and billionaires.
4. At Front Porch Republic, Nathan Mayo explains why charity is not optional. From the piece:
In our era, it is far more popular to talk about rights (i.e., protections or provisions we are owed) than duties. But without duties even the most fundamental rights cannot be implemented. For instance, a child’s right to life, liberty, and property is of no use if his parents abandon him to the elements at birth. If you have a right to property, then others must have a duty to respect it. To put it another way, all genuine rights are the other side of someone else’s duties.
Ironically, those who contend that expansive rights eliminate the need for personal responsibility quickly discover their system relies heavily on the state’s assumption of duty for their vision to succeed. For example, universal basic income only works if the state sees providing money to citizens as its duty. And unless the fond hopes of material abundance promised by AI-boosters come to pass, the state would only have resources to give if most citizens feel duty bound to continue working rather than spend more time fishing.
That affirms what many in the charity space have discovered: When people fail to do their duty voluntarily, others suffer. If no adoptive family fulfills their duty to the less fortunate, abandoned children are forced into a revolving foster care arrangement. And even if a child is adopted, while he may grow to love his adopters, he may never fully recover from the years of neglect he suffered before being taken in. While both arrangements are better than abandonment, they’re not nearly as good as if his parents had done their duty in the first place.
5. More Mayo: At True Charity, he tells of the popular standing of . . . loan sharks. From the analysis:
Yet, pick any city and search for payday lenders. I picked lenders in Fresno, California listed on Google Maps and scrolled through the top 50. Only five had a lower rating than four stars and many were five-star rated—with hundreds of positive reviews. As one said, “Almost thirty years I’ve been coming here, I can’t give enough five stars!” Compare that to banks in Fresno: 38 of the top 50 were rated lower than four stars. It’s not close, compared to other financial institutions, payday lenders are beloved by their customers.
So most customers like the system, but that begs another question: If customers like the system does that mean it’s good?
Not necessarily. Just because people like something doesn’t mean it helps them achieve their long-term goals. Indeed, cigarettes may get good reviews—yet there are millions of chain smokers suffering from cancer or emphysema who regret their decision.
On balance, there are responsible use cases for short-term loans. People with poor credit just getting started—or re-establishing themselves after a financial loss—may need a few days worth of margin to get by.
6. At Jewish News Syndicate, David DesRosiers argues for the necessity of a Gazan diaspora. From the commentary:
For those of us who are watching as concerned spectators and are horrified by the conditions on the ground in Gaza, I ask you to ponder a simple “What if?” What if Iran and its satanic terrorist network had Israel’s hand? What if Israel were the one militarily prostrate, unable to defend itself, and without its ally, the United States, in its corner? Easy to answer, no? “A river to the sea” pogrom would be the program.
In 1985, a then-recognized international rock star who went by the name of Sting wrote a global ballad, with an Over-the-Iron-Curtain communique of “I hope the Russians love their children, too.” My question to the world is this: Do the Gazans “love their children?”
Hamas certainly does not. The only card that Hamas has is the Israeli hostages. And it turns out that, unlike Hamas, Israelis have great love for their own, alive and dead. Hamas watches its people die and starve as tribute to their nihilistic genocidal cause and waits for the shamefully predictable manna from Europe.
Good humanitarians of the world, this suffering stops when Hamas surrenders all the hostages and its leadership leaves. I am sure Iran’s leadership would welcome Hamas into their country and find an ugly purpose for it to serve, with the goal of a bellicose comeback.
7. At City Journal, Jonathan Clarke visits Greece, and contemplates things ancient and modern. From the article:
Early on the third morning of the trip, we leave the town of Patras and climb high into the mountains to visit a monastery that has been built directly into a sheer rock face. By Western standards, Greece is an intensely religious country. The Greek Orthodox Church is the state religion, and priests are public employees. Only five monks reside at this monastery; one stands in front as we arrive, densely bearded, silent, watchful. The view from where he stands, leaning against a low stone wall, out into the valley below would stir thoughts of transcendence in a CPA. You do feel, in this place of sanctuary and isolation, that you have briefly left the City of Man and traveled at least some small distance toward the City of God. Even the cheap bracelets my daughter and her friends buy in the gift shop do not entirely spoil this effect for me.
The ancient glories of Greece are embedded in every town, in plaques and ruins and jobs for guides. The sense of the past is strong here. Whether this history provides much moral sustenance in daily life, I do not know. The Greeks certainly seem to feel fortunate that they are Greek. This may have more to do with natural love of patria and with the region’s agreeable climate than with the sanctified names and dates. The Greeks are courteous and patient even as resentment of outsiders is strong with them. Their character resists modernity. A Greek man or woman watching hoi polloi blunder through The Acropolis may be forgiven, perhaps, for feeling that the country is pouring out its mythos a cupful at a time.
8. At National Review, Daniel Flynn reports on the magazine’s connection to Star Trek through one of the old show’s great writers, Ted Sturgeon, and one of the journal’s great editors, Frank Meyer. From the piece:
In the late 1950s, Sturgeon was already enjoying a degree of mainstream success, with NBC Radio’s X Minus One having aired adaptations of three of his stories. His arrangement with NR was initially a source of embarrassment. He could note with ease to Robert Heinlein his molestation as a teenager. He nevertheless struggled to describe himself to Heinlein as a reviewer for the conservative biweekly, even though the author of Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land had divulged that he was considering subscribing to NR. “I would like to make it very clear that I write in the NR & not for the NR,” Sturgeon insisted to Heinlein. “I say what I think & advise what I advise, knowing full well that some of it runs counter to editorial precept. This I will continue to do until they say stop, which is in their power—it’s their soapbox. At the first syllable of stop, however, they get nothing else from me. To date they have run every single word I have submitted, in the order submitted.”
Objections flowed exclusively from Sturgeon to the editors. Privately, he described Meyer to Heinlein as a man of “vast erudition” but ultimately “sick in the head.” Meyer’s anti-communism particularly startled Sturgeon. He wrote to Heinlein, “He goes around the country lecturing against coexistence, promulgating a fight to the finish against Communism.” Meyer’s 14 years as a Communist, which included a stint answering to Walter Ulbricht, who would later, as East Germany’s dictator, order the construction of the Berlin Wall, instilled in him a more jaundiced view of the ideology than typically found in Woodstock. The anti-communist and the anti-anti-communist nevertheless enjoyed an ongoing, friendly dialogue on this and other divisive subjects.
9. At Civitas Outlook, the great Brian Anderson sizes up Flynn’s new biography of Frank Meyer. From the review:
As National Review’s literary editor, Meyer shaped the intellectual identity of the magazine’s “back of the book,” making “Books, Arts, and Manners” one of the most respected review sections in American journalism. Rather than impose his own views on the writers, Meyer played “director,” as Flynn puts it, aiming to “attach the right book to the right reviewer.” His talent-scouting proved formidable. Joan Didion, then a painfully shy young writer, entered the magazine’s pages through Meyer’s hand, producing more than two dozen pieces between 1959 and 1966 on everything from J.D. Salinger to Smell-o-Vision. Meyer also helped launch the career of Garry Wills, assigning the Catholic writer demanding material and offering behind-the-scenes guidance. Both Didion and Wills, leaving their conservatism behind, would ascend to the heights of American intellectual life. Critic Hugh Kenner, classicist Guy Davenport, and science-fiction legend Theodore Sturgeon—none a conventional conservative—were other perhaps surprising writers who showed up in Meyer’s department.
More directly, Meyer’s own writing—through his “Principles and Heresies” column, his influential 1962 book In Defense of Freedom, and several key essays—helped define National Review’s and postwar American conservatism’s broad philosophical stance. For Meyer, a durable conservatism had to unite recognition of a transcendent moral order with the libertarian’s insistence on individual freedom, an approach that came to be known as “fusionism,” though Meyer himself preferred to describe the relationship as one of “fairly extreme tension.”
10. More CO: Emina Melonic considers the worldview of the great playwright and writer David Mamet. From the essay:
One of the questions that plagues any normal person (and certainly any normal American) is what has happened to my (our) world? Although Mamet draws clear divisions between conservatives and leftists, he perhaps misses that such divisions are becoming increasingly meaningless. At this point (especially with the start of Covid), the cultural fight isn’t between our usual understanding of cultural lines—conservative or liberal—but between sanity and insanity. Although Mamet’s explorations make it quite clear who is sane and who is insane, he still maintains the usual ideological divides. What seems to connect much of conservative thought to the sanity/insanity divide is that those who reject the surreality of woke ideology or public health tyranny are slowly discovering that many of the reasons why they do so track closely with traditional conservative approaches.
This is not necessarily wrong for Mamet to do. At the core of the cultural and political problems is the difference between the Weltanschauung—a particular metaphysical disposition that is found in both conservatives and liberals. The Left generally relies on the Marxist ideology, and the Right is striving to escape the ideology and institute a free market, be it economic or cultural. The conservative is confident in both reason and faith that there is a reality we can know and draw from in understanding the profitable use of our freedom.
Of course, since so many things have shifted (for better or worse), those old intellectual divisions are increasingly more difficult to accept. Today’s Marxism is strangely intertwined with extreme oligarchical capitalism, with a good dose of surveillance. It is a new breed of problems. Conservatives now realize that many corporations formed too close a nexus with the previous progressive government.
11. At Academic Questions, Liah Greenfeld explains how the social sciences killed America’s universities. From the essay:
What has made the university an agent of civic destruction? I believe the answer to this question requires a fuller understanding of the goals, purposes, and motivations of those involved in the development of the modern university. The study of the modern university’s origins and incubation reveals a number of important points: (1) The American research university has had, from its birth, very little to do with the “Western intellectual heritage,” if by this we mean “great books” and the propagation of the values of liberal democracy; (2) that the reason for its formation was status-protection for a class of elites quickly losing its dominance; (3) that this elite group used the authority of science to consolidate power at a time when science was wresting moral and cultural authority from earlier sources, in particular religion; (4) that the university’s primary contribution to society has been the channeling of money to the sciences, while profiting from this to advance the institution’s self-interest; (6) that even with making this small contribution, on balance, the university has done great damage to society; (7) finally, that the university cannot—and should not—be reformed, but must be abolished and replaced by a new set of institutions, from which we shall be able to expect what we have mistakenly expected from our universities: the support of science and reasoned scholarship, and the education of our youth.
Paradoxically, presented and generally believed to be the home for natural science and humanistic scholarship, the American research university used these recognized fields of inquiry to establish a brand-new profession. This new field did not correspond to any area of study but was nevertheless named “social science.” The name was chosen because after the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), the prestige of science skyrocketed. The label “science” was a claim to authority, which only the few existing philosophers of science would be able to dispute. By successfully laying this claim, “social science” was able to arrogate to itself the right to preside over the education of our youth, previously the province of the church.
12. At The Spectator World, Alexander Larman finds C.S. Lewis—though dead sixty years—very much having a moment. From the reflection:
There are rumors that Lewis’s ever-popular satirical epistolary novel The Screwtape Letters is to be turned into an animated film. Not long ago, the author was portrayed on film by Matthew Goode in Freud’s Last Session, opposite none other than Anthony Hopkins as Freud: a circle squared, because Hopkins played Lewis in Richard Attenborough’s fine biopic Shadowlands in 1993. And the author remains a key figure in American theological circles, with his stepson Douglas Gresham responsible for marshaling his writings and posthumous reputation at the many symposia and lectures that are based around Lewis’s work.
There seems little danger that this real-ale-loving Englishman—who once supposedly said “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me”—will ever be forgotten. Yet the work for which he will forever be best known is The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which was first published 75 years ago—and has been a much-loved classic ever since.
Its only serious rival in 20th-century children’s literature—for longevity and sales alike—is The Hobbit, written by Lewis’s friend, colleague and occasional academic rival J.R.R Tolkien. While Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series has somewhat lagged behind The Lord of the Rings when it comes to popularity, there can be little doubt that the first-published and best-known book in the series will be read and loved as long as it remains in print. And how can you not admire a book that gave rise to the great Anthony Lane’s suggested title for the first Sex and the City movie: “The lying, the bitch and the wardrobe?” Ironically, for a man who has become associated with one of the most popular children’s titles ever published, Lewis had never viewed himself as a family-oriented author when he wrote the first draft in the late 1940s.
Lucky 13. At Fast Company, Elizabeth Segran reports on a luxury company that downplays its charitable doings. From the article:
The kids needed better bags, the Tatelmans agreed. At the time, Jacqueline was pregnant, but since her family had been in the fashion industry, she felt she had the skills to start a buy one, give one backpack business. In 2013, they cofounded State, which sells high-end backpacks and uses the proceeds to donate backpacks (and other resources) to kids in need. “We made the deliberate decision to focus on the premium end of the market so we would have enough margin to donate to the philanthropic efforts,” Scot says.
Jacqueline focused on the business, first as chief creative officer. In 2020, she decided to take on the role of CEO as State faced financial challenges, and has since increased revenues by 1,000%, rocketing the company to eight figures in revenue. Scot, meanwhile, has been laser focused on the nonprofit. Every year, Jacqueline apportions hundreds of thousands of dollars to support Scot’s work, from donating backpacks to organizing summer camps. . . .
Now, Scot believes that the best approach to corporate philanthropy is to under-communicate, but over-deliver. After all, the evidence suggests that most consumers don’t make purchases based on a brand’s social mission—and the small number that do will be on the lookout for these efforts, and hold a brand’s feet to the fire if they don’t follow through.
Bonus. At American Reformer, Mike Sabo looks north and find that Canada is dying. By suicide. From the piece:
As with the ongoing marijuana fiasco in America, legalization means legitimizing an action and sanctioning it as an unimpeachable right that should be available to all, even minors in some cases. And the law of fashion often acts in tandem as an additional accelerant. The strong forces of social opprobrium that used to be present are blunted and weakened, however barbaric the newly claimed right may be. Eventually, a nation’s people accept it as part of their way of life, forgetting that it was once admonished and deemed socially unacceptable.
Since the law is a teacher, it should be no surprise that eligibility requirements for MAID have gradually expanded since Canada’s legalization of assisted suicide. In 2021, a two-track system was made law. Track 1 patients, which include those whose natural death was “reasonably foreseeable,” can now choose death on the day they’re approved for MAID. Meanwhile, Track 2 was created for individuals with chronic pain or disabilities—that is, cases where death is not imminent.
The inertia of legalizing assisted suicide is not hard to see. In 2027, MAID will be an option for those with mental illness, and the Canadian Parliament also wants to expand eligibility to include minors. Calabro points out that this is occurring amidst “concerns about whether it was possible to credibly distinguish between suicidal ideation and a desire for MAID.”
Bonus Bonus. At Hickman’s Hinterlands, A.M. Hickman is caught, painfully—between a mother’s death and a child’s birth. From the piece:
My answer came. Now, on Friday my mother’s funeral will take place. Will my wife be in labor then? Will the baby come today, or tomorrow, that we might brighten that tragic day by bringing along our newborn—that the funeral guests might behold the full circle of life, right before their eyes, in one great and improbable flourish of tragedy and joy?
Or—perhaps more likely, the realities of birth will keep us from making the funeral at all. I may really miss my own mother’s funeral in order to assist in the safe delivery of her first grandchild.
Only God knows.
Only God knows when the rain will fall, or when a dying woman will pass from this life, or when a baby will finally be born. The foreign clockwork of heavenly time spins madly, deep within the center of my head and behind my heavy eyes; I lately feel as if I must live as a kind of renunciant, that I must disabuse myself of any idea that I could ever be in control of such grave occurrences. While, in the wider world, doctors schedule C-Sections and “assisted death” appointments, that they might pencil them neatly into their schedules, making ample room for after-work rounds of golf—in the land where God’s time still reigns triumphant and unmolested, a man’s will is only a piddling, breathless, nervous little thing. At times such as these, a wise man lets go; he concedes his control, his intellect, his insistences, he even places all of the hours of his days and the breaths within his lungs on the altar, remembering that they are only borrowed from Providence—and shall be returned when the Lord calls for them.
For the Good of the Cause
Uno. The Center’s important upcoming “Givers, Doers, & Thinkers” webinar—ace training (via-Zoom, and free!) for fundraising professionals—takes place on Tuesday, September 9th, from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. (Eastern), and will focus on digital fundraising, especially on how to bringing in grass-roots donors. Handy tips will abound for writing email copy that wins over donors, how to set realistic goals and analyze results, and much more. Are you attending? Of course you are. Find out more, and register, right here.
Due. At Philanthropy Daily, Howard Husock explains the limits of President Trump’s executive order on nonprofits. Read it here.
Tre. More from PD, where Brenna Morlock connects the dots between Disneyland and . . . direct mail. Read it here.
Department of Bad Jokes
Q: Why did the man wake up laughing?
A: Because he slept funny.
A Dios
Wasn’t it just February? 2006? Wasn’t the Daily News three cents, and a Coke a dime? The tempus is fugiting. Phones are no longer dialed, S&H Green Stamps no longer collected, vulgarity no longer the province of the wharf or the local dive. What will we be saying about these current days come, say, 2055—“we” who’ve not been graduated to the glue factory? Oh for a day not consumed by such notions.
May We Embrace Each Moment’s Preciousness, and The One Who Gives Them,
Jack Fowler, who is keyboard-hunching at jfowler@amphil.com.
