
Common Good Constitutionalism Considered
Right. I read it. And by “It” I mean, of course, Adrian Vermeule’s Atlantic piece. Here’s the thing: Vermeule’s “Common good constitutionalism” is not actually that different from, for example, Hadley Arkes’ natural law constitutionalism. That tradition of Finnis-inspired Lincoln-loving...

Death in Venice
In the summer of 1575, plague struck Venice. The city fathers tried to stem the contamination by requiring crews suspected of infection to stay on the island of Lazzaretto for forty days. These quaranta giorni are the origin of the...

On Chosen Family in East Village Vaguely Soviet Speakeasies
Last night, we launched Issue 23 of Plough Quarterly, at the Red Room at KGB Bar on East 4th Street. I went there first when I was probably sixteen or so, for a book launch of my father’s, and I’ve...

Moldbug Through the Looking Glass
(Ed. Note: A version of this piece was originally published on Susannah Black’s blog Radio Free Thulcandra.) This post is dedicated, with love, to my enemies. Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings, Moldbug/Calloway, Mencius Moldbug|Curtis Yarvin (Neoreaction/California), Caroline Calloway...

Sealed in Blood: Aristopopulism and the City of Man
Table of Contents After Liberalism Failed Tankies and Tocquevillians The Critic’s Critics The Ways of Judgment Political Animals Comedies and Common Goods Slave State Liberalism Wolves to Men City of Dads The White Rose Third Sailing — After Liberalism Failed...

Movie Review: A Wrinkle in Time
I’m fairly sure that the first time I ever ran into any of the words in the Bible in print was in the pages of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. It’s the first of many occasions in the book...

Jesus the Imagination: A New Magazine Launches in Midtown Manhattan
The current story of Christian media is not—despite the pain occasioned by the passing of Books and Culture—exclusively one of decline and buzzfeedification. This summer marks the advent of a new annual, edited by Michael Martin, titled Jesus the Imagination.

The Most Reluctant Convert: Lewis, Theater, and the Friendship of Debate
It’s not that I ever pictured C. S. Lewis as a sixteen year old girl. It’s that when I was one, and reading Surprised by Joy for the first time, I thought of him as a peer. Was this because...

Polis/Counter-polis: On the Civic Benedict Option
October 2016 was a simpler, more innocent time. We were all youths, wet behind the ears; we look back at ourselves with a kind of bemused affection. Rod Dreher assumed, surely—we all assumed—that Hillary Clinton would win in November, that...

Tim Keller Goes for a Walk
This piece was co-written with Jake Meador. Tim Keller: (Walks outside on beautiful fall day, inhales deeply, and sighs contentedly) This is such a lovely day. Rachel Held Evans: What exactly are you implying?