Dear Intelligent American,
This space has mentioned the amazing work of sculptor Sabin Howard, whose great work, the National World War I Memorial—dubbed “A Soldier’s Journey”—was formally unveiled last week. Do read about that remarkable event, here.
This space is also loath to mention politics. Here we make somewhat of an exception, because at the recent, much-discussed presidential debate, there was a denial that abortion in America claims the lives of viable unborn children. Pshaw! For half a century, we have endured a willful rejection, or irresponsible ignorance, as to the brutal truth that Roe enshrined abortion on demand, up to the moment of birth. Maybe it is too disturbing a thing for America or Americans to admit? But there are record-keepers of the body count, and additional details as to location, maternal race, repetition, and the gestational age of the victim.
True, the vast majority of abortions happen within the “first trimester.” A tiny fraction, one percent, occur after 21 weeks, on the cusp of, or past, fetal viability. True, one percent may seem tiny. But one percent of 64 million is 640,000—the population of Vermont. There’s nothing anecdotal—or deniable—about that.
Some heads, for partisan and political reasons, shake at that fact. Others shake in distress, and wonder what it says about our nation that it allows such bloodshed.
Straight Ahead: Opinions and Analyses of Things Various, Which Should Appeal to the Intellect
1. At The New Atlantis, Ari Schulman takes on the philanthropic weirdness found in “effective altruism.” From the piece:
But then there are the parts of effective altruism that are just . . . weird.
For many of its adherents, EA is not just an idea but a transformational lifestyle. There is no limit to how much of your time, money, and identity you can give over to it. EA is intertwined with the rationalist movement, so much so that they are virtually synonyms, different faces of the same set of thinkers, ideas, and organizations. There are formalized online communities. There are in-person meetups. For $3,900 a pop, you can attend four-day-long rationality training workshops at the Bay-area Center for Applied Rationality. Or you can just read up on what Eliezer Yudkowsky, whose work helped inspire the seminars, calls “The Way” of rationality: “The Way is a precise Art. Do not walk to the truth, but dance. On each and every step of that dance your foot comes down in exactly the right spot. Each piece of evidence shifts your beliefs by exactly the right amount, neither more nor less.” Yudkowsky, currently enjoying a moment as the world’s leading expert on AI safety research, was once better known for his FanFiction.net magnum opus Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which spans nearly twice the length of Anna Karenina.
Finished the rationality seminar but still not quite dancing? Consider moving into a rationalist group house.
2. At National Catholic Register, Andrea Picciotti-Bayer reveals how gender ideology is proving a roadblock to Christian families who aspire to foster care. From the article:
I keep being told that most Americans simply don’t care about religious freedom. As a committed Catholic and religious-freedom advocate, I find that intensely frustrating. So I’m doing my best to remind people of the value of religious freedom—and warn them of the nasty things that happen when it’s lost.
A powerful way to do this is through storytelling. I’m sharing the stories of ordinary Americans whose religious liberty has been trampled upon or jeopardized by overzealous government officials pushing newly embraced progressive policies and laws. My organization, the Conscience Project, recently released a short video sharing one family’s struggle to adopt their foster children. I promise you won’t regret dedicating the eight minutes it takes to watch it.
(N.B.: Find more on that here.)
3. More Foster Care: At National Review, Naomi Schaefer Riley presses the case, in the face of critics, for its continued importance. From the piece:
This is the key. Most of the child maltreatment in this country is driven by our drug crisis. Some estimates suggest that substance abuse is involved in over 80 percent of child-maltreatment cases. Drug abuse (often in combination with mental illness) prevents parents, particularly those of small children, from properly caring for kids. This includes the constant monitoring needed by infants and toddlers—feeding them, changing them, and getting them medical care; keeping them from touching hot stoves or running into traffic or ingesting substances they should not. It means not leaving them in the care of other dangerous individuals.
The removal of children in order to incentivize a change in parental behavior can seem heartless. Writing a few years ago for the Institute for Family Studies, Amber Lapp interviewed a woman whose children were removed because of her addiction, after which she went to a rehab program. “Well, I think a lot of people like me, they stay on [drugs] because they lose their kids,” she told Lapp, who concluded: “We need a system that is by default integrative, acknowledging and nurturing the mother-child relationship and recognizing that, for many mothers, keeping the connection strong with their children may be the most powerful motivation to get better.”
Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Getting off drugs is hard. And, as we have seen in the massive move toward drug legalization and the widespread cultural acceptance of drug use, there are fewer and fewer reasons to do so.
Coming in Hot . . .
Endure this brief interruption, because it contains important news for fundraising worker bees: On Wednesday, October 2, from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m., Eastern, the Center for Civil Society will host an important webinar on “How to Supercharge Your Year-End Giving.” It’s free—Christmas is coming early! Be there or be disappointed. Get complete information and sign up, right here.
. . . Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming.
4. At Cana Academy, Andrew Zwerneman reports on the muscular reemergence of Marxism. From the piece:
Marx declares an end to philosophy. His intent is not to understand the world but to change it. Translate “change” as revolutionize, and violently at that. He further decries religion as pure fiction. With that second premise in place, Promethean man displaces man as the image of God.
Out goes philosophy as a source of authority for how we ought to understand who we are and how we ought to live. Out goes revelation as the second major normative source of authority. Out go the two greatest loves that ground our culture: the love of wisdom and the love of God and neighbor. Out goes genuine history, since events at the founding of our culture—in Ancient Greece and Ancient Israel—are no longer meaningful.
The final target is speech. Marx issues a prohibition on questions concerning origins—what transcends us, as in the philosopher’s Good, and who transcends us, as in the God of the scriptures. Today, the Marxian prohibition extends to our forebears who have borne the authority of Western wisdom and love. Under sweeping critiques, and through the radical tactic of canceling, Marxists demonize the West as racist, sexist, and imperialist. Out, then, go whole pantheons of our greatest statesmen, philosophers, saints, discoverers, and writers. In a final twist of the illiberal Marxist mind, under the current dogma of multiculturalism only one culture finds its place in jeopardy: ours, the West.
5. At The Dispatch, Flagg Taylor explains that The Gulag Archipelago is more than a harrowing account of Marxist depravity. From the essay:
Solzhenitsyn the investigative historian uncovers the hidden logic underlying the transformation of the system and introduces readers to the key players such as Naftaly Frenkel. In one particularly powerful chapter, Solzhenitsyn describes the zeks’ construction of the Belomor Canal, connecting the White and Baltic seas, with little more than handmade picks and wheelbarrows. “That’s what our gas execution van consisted of,” Solzhenitsyn notes dryly. “We didn’t have any gas for the gas chamber.”
Solzhenitsyn the political and philosophic analyst shows that the Gulag was not an ancillary phenomenon rooted in the deranged appetites of a single tyrant, but a project intrinsically related to the Bolshevik vision, and even to Marx and Engels’ philosophy of labor. Camps were understood as a “torch of progress,” necessary to the punishment of class enemies. Consciousness could be reforged through productive labor. The Party also seized on all of this forced labor to fuel its grand economic ambitions. Solzhenitsyn sees the intersection of these two necessities—the theoretical and economic—as revealing the camps to be “not merely the ‘dark side’ of our postrevolutionary life but very nearly the very liver of events.”
6. At Comment Magazine, Louis Kim asks: If we are indeed in decline, is this not something we need to embrace? From the essay:
How do we respond to the unremitting gloom of decline? If there are three reactions we see repeatedly in history—cowering, ignoring, or confronting—Robert D. Kaplan, a veteran international correspondent, chooses the last option in his book The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate and the Burden of Power. For Kaplan, “thinking tragically prevents tragedy.” Only with an unflinching acknowledgement of the cruel randomness of fate and a clear-eyed expectation that, as Solzhenitsyn said, “even in the best of all hearts, there remains . . . an uprooted small corner of evil,” can we have the humility and prudence to do less harm than we otherwise might.
When thinking about decline, we should orient our lives around its inevitability. We tend to see life as an arc, with most of our conscious energy and societal imagination focused on growth and optimization peaking somewhere between birth and death. But what if our youthful formation was more intentionally constructed for denouement? If the fibres of education were not only to pull us up to the highest peaks but instead to anticipate the eventual fraying such that the few remaining fibres hold us up at the end with dignity and agency? Would our society be healthier if it were structured around the eventuality that there will be a last day, a last hour, and a last second? Or not?
7. At First Things, Ronen Shoval critiques America’s emphasis on individualism, and its broken promise. From the piece:
In the suburban park near our Springfield home, a stately church stood—a testament to centuries-old faith. But its grand façade was overshadowed by a large pride flag draped over its entrance, obscuring the Christian cross behind it. This church, like many others we encountered, seemed to have rebranded itself, aligning more with contemporary social movements than with its traditional doctrines. This house of worship, which once echoed with the moral certainties of old, was now a center for a new kind of faith, built on the fluctuating dogmas of the present. It was as if the altar had shifted, and the question lingered: To which god are these prayers now offered?
This transformation is not limited to the churches; it reflects a broader void in American life where the role of moral institutions has diminished. Into this void, “woke” ideology steps confidently, offering a new set of rituals and a new pantheon of virtues. It seeks to replace the cohesive moral vision that once unified communities with a fractured collection of identities and causes. This isn't merely a new expression of values—it's an attempt to rebuild the sacred around the self, often at the expense of shared history and collective purpose.
This ethos of individualism also permeates American education. In Israel, students belong to a class that serves as their social anchor, with a homeroom teacher who oversees their well-being. The class is a community, a stable environment where relationships are formed and nurtured. In stark contrast, American students arrive at school as individuals. There is no fixed class; instead, they are equipped with a locker—a solitary constant amidst a whirlwind of movement from room to room. Teachers stay put while students shuttle through hallways, each following his or her own path. This structure mirrors a broader cultural norm: Independence is paramount, and the individual must navigate his or her own way through the labyrinth of life.
8. At The Human Life Review, Victor Lee Austin explains how fertility has gone to the dogs. From the piece:
It was in a short piece posted by a cranky young blogger a little over a decade ago that I first read about dogs replacing children in the lives of young adults. This correlates to cohabitation replacing marriage in this cohort, but it reflects a cultural change in marriage as well. Initially I thought the dog-angle a bit severe. But then I moved to an apartment in the quasi-hip Uptown area of Dallas. Here, where I still live, dogs rule. They frequent stores. Starbucks baristas give them small cups of whipped cream. They have special footies for summer outings on the Katy trail (the paw-coverings are needed to avoid blisters in the heat). Whereas elsewhere one might see warning signs about the effects of the heat on children (be sure they drink water, never leave them alone in a car, etc.) here the warnings are about dogs. Water fountains have multiple faucets, from one for a full-size human down to a ground-level lapping dish.
9. At Public Discourse, Xavier Symons, John Rhee, and Tyler VanderWeele explain that even at life’s ending, there is flourishing to be had. From the reflection:
But certain human goods are uniquely realizable in end-of-life contexts, and dying may, paradoxically, allow us to enter more deeply into our own humanity. This fact deserves more attention than it has received to date. We would focus on three areas in particular: narrative consolidation, deepening relationships, and the cultivation of virtue.
Human beings can undergo a strengthening of meaning at the end of life through reflection on life experience. Several philosophers have argued that human beings are natural storytellers. Every community has its own stories with which members come to form a sense of shared identity.
At a personal level, storytelling is fundamental to how we understand our own experience. By reflecting on our own life stories—by looking back on major life milestones and sketching a narrative arc based on the various significant moments that characterize our life journey—we can strengthen our sense of meaning. The end of life is uniquely conducive to this process of narrative consolidation: when someone has a terminal illness, he generally knows the parameters of his remaining time, and life acquires a very determinate time horizon. A person’s capacity for reflective interpretation is enhanced when fewer and fewer significant events might affect life interpretation. Loved ones and palliative care specialists can also help provide and enhance the most positive interpretations of our stories.
10. At Verily Magazine, Grace Babineau finds the value in young’uns embracing family chores. From the article:
Growing up, the word Saturday was almost synonymous with cleaning in my family. As soon as any child was able to use a dust cloth or push a vacuum properly, he or she was assigned a chore at the appropriate ability level. Every Saturday, we had to complete our designated chore before other leisure activities or school assignments. Exceptions were made of course, but the older we grew, the more my parents expected us to balance these responsibilities.
In similar fashion, all the kids were expected to help clean up every night after dinner. Over the years, various strategies were devised to organize this bemoaned task. Clean-up teams were carefully designed to place compatible siblings together, timers set to encourage productivity, and music was always in the air to keep spirits uplifted.
Chores were a part of my family’s way of functioning. We complained and tried to avoid them, but we never questioned why we did them. As a family, we all had roles in keeping the home running smoothly, and the older you grew, the more this responsibility increased. It made sense to us, as much as we disliked it.
11. At Plough Magazine, Christina Cannon searches for freedom while getting her kicks on Route Six-Six. From the article:
The theme of freedom is as ubiquitous in American road-trip literature as grain silos are in Midwest speed-trap towns. But what it means is clearly not universal to all times and peoples and places. Frederick Jackson Turner’s “Frontier Thesis” explained to Americans in the late nineteenth century why they were naturally destined to expand, to live on ever-fluid borders at the edge of “civilization.” Though there’s clearly a distinction between roaming national parks in a minivan on spring break and one-way migration via covered wagon, freedom and expansion are also still closely associated. If someone in search of a homestead to farm obtains land at the expense of a native of the western United States, is there freedom in this complex? The settler would likely think so. Those from the regions who found themselves suddenly confined to reservations or forcibly set on the road to Oklahoma Territory would clearly think not. What people think of as “freeing” is sometimes not neutral or universally positive. Martin Luther King, Jr found road trips a fitting example of one of the things that makes “the cup of endurance run over” in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”: “When you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you. . . .” Freedom must be considered not only as a personal right, but also as a possible condition of a society—if some of us are free and some of us are not, then collectively we are not free. Increased options on one person’s behalf at the expense of others results in no net gain.
(FYI: Nat King Cole sings the fabled road, right here.)
12. At The European Conservative, Giuseppe Gracia argues that hatred of Jews doubles as hatred of Western civilization. From the essay:
The fact that man has the desire not to be a creature, but to be a creator himself, is as well known as the story of Adam and Eve. Judaism can be understood as a testimony against this desire. As a sign that God sets the rules of life and that the Jews, as the priesthood among the nations, as the Bible says, are especially called to remind the world of these rules. This is a nuisance for some other religions, as well as for atheist and technology-believing groups who refuse to see life as something that is owed to a God whom we should love and whose commandments we should keep—a nuisance to all those who want to sit in the executive chair of existence themselves. By eradicating Judaism, they want to eradicate this nuisance. They want to forget that no human being has control over their birth, over the gift of love and freedom, over their biological sex or over the ultimate meaning of life. And they want to forget that Judaism, together with Christianity, is the soul of the free world.
In this sense, antisemitism contains the desire for a civilisational patricide. Hatred of Jews becomes hatred of the West. The West must disappear because it is not seen as an achievement. Left-wing and Islamist circles see it as a racist-imperial cancer of the world, neo-fascist circles see it as a haven of decadence and degeneracy, against which only a nation of the strong and pure can help.
Lucky 13. At Catholic World Report, Paul Seaton explains the American patrimony of the Declaration, and current threats to liberal democracy. From the piece:
The French Catholic poet, dramatist, and diplomat Paul Claudel once wrote that sometimes we need to look at our watches and ask, “What time is it?” He did not mean this literally. He meant something like “reading the signs of the time.” Certain times demand to be read and read well. Ours is one of those times.
To be sure, reading what time it is really is difficult and demanding. It requires sound criteria of analysis and evaluation and an adequate factual basis on which to deploy them. Most of us are partial on both these scores (present company included). In such circumstances, we need help. It is my belief that the Declaration of Independence still provides invaluable guidance in this regard; indeed, I think it is especially helpful in today’s circumstances.
Why? Because it confronted, analyzed, and indicted encroaching “tyranny” or “despotism”–which is our situation today. To be sure, our would-be tyrants are more varied and ideological than George III, more ubiquitous and nefarious.1 But the principles of ordered liberty, of a government that is the expression of a free and self-governing people, that are articulated in the document continue to be valid and therefore relevant today.
Bonus. At City Journal, Stephen Eide bemoans the whammy heroin put on jazz. From the piece:
When heroin hit, jazz’s day was already beginning to fade. The emergence of rock and roll and Motown would soon devastate jazz musicians’ ability to earn a living. After the 1960s, there would be no more superstars on the level of Coltrane and Miles. The music ceased to develop as rapidly and successfully as it had in previous decades, much of the action shifted toward revivals of older forms, and the audience contracted. The musicians didn’t appreciate how little time they had left, and they failed to make the most of it, partly because so many couldn’t shake their addiction to drugs.
Jazz aficionados constitute a left-leaning community and always have. Thus, the literature tends to treat the jazz-heroin epidemic mainly as a story of racism (then still highly prevalent in American society), of musicians’ desperate efforts to self-medicate the associated trauma with narcotics, and of senselessly harsh drug laws. But the real story is less straightforward. It concerns the harm that addictive drugs do, the social factors that drive addiction, and the promise that culture holds as a means of appreciating American history’s confounding tangle of highs and lows.
For the Good of the Cause
Uno. At Philanthropy Daily, Frank Filocomo and Jillian Racoosin Kormier discuss the importance of “third places,” and why they need protection. Read it here.
Due. The Center for Civil Society will be serving up an important, via-Zoom Master Class on Thursday, October 10, on Planned Giving (from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m., Eastern). Why attend? You’ll learn how to identify planned giving prospects, how to build a better planned giving program, and much more. Get complete information right here.
Tre. Attention, all Givers, Doers, and Thinkers: C4CS will host a consequential conference on K to Campus: How the Education Reform Movement Can Reshape Higher Ed. It takes place at Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA, from October 23 to 24, and just about every bit of info you want/need to know can be found here. Fun fact: The kick-off event will be Yours Truly interviewing the great Victor Davis Hanson. Come, and prepare to be inspired.
Department of Bad Jokes
Q: What do you get when you drop a pumpkin?
A: Squash.
A Dios
This missive should prompt occasional thoughts and commentary about charity. So, let’s: At Mass last weekend, James 2 was read: “How does it help, my brothers, when someone who has never done a single good act claims to have faith? Will that faith bring salvation? If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, ‘I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty,’ without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that?” Yeah—what good is that? We are all of us philanthropists, no? Be a giver.
May Those with Eyes See and Ears Hear,
Jack Fowler, who contemplates these and other senses at jfowler@amphil.com.
