Against Christian Civilization: Paul Kingsnorth critiques the idea of using Christianity as a tool to defend Western culture, arguing that Christianity at its core is uncivilized.
Christianity is impractical. Impractical, intolerable, and awful, in the original sense of that word. It is terrifying, and it is designed to kill you. This is because the values of God and the world are inimical, as we are told repeatedly by Christ and all the saints. This, surely, is the beautiful mystery at the heart of this thing. God is not mocked. His wisdom is foolishness to the world, and vice versa. What this means to us is that our “civilizational war” in the name of Christ will fail, because Christ does not fight wars other than those that go on in the heart.
Cold Immigration: IM-1776 piece on how, during the Cold War, nationalist sentiments were often tolerated or embraced by Western governments as a counterweight to communist ideologies, but in contemporary times, these institutions are critical of nationalism, and view it as a threat to globalism.
The H-1B visa program is emblematic of a system that values profit margins and global competitiveness over the livelihoods of the people it was supposed to serve, and fits into the larger arc of post-Cold War economic policies that dismantled the foundations of American prosperity. The promise of retraining and upward mobility for displaced workers has been proven to be hollow, mirroring the empty assurances of globalization. Instead of fostering opportunity and innovation, it has become a mechanism for entrenching corporate power and perpetuating a system that sacrifices national interests for the sake of global integration. It must end.
Daughters of Herod: Old Glory Club piece comparing modern society’s hostility toward children to Herod’s slaughter of infants.
Who is it that was killed by his mother, a Daughter of Herod, and lost his chance to wander destitute across deserts and mountains, ill-clothed in skins, hiding in caves? If only he had had his chance, like that spiritual athlete John the Baptist, to put us all to shame. Who died in utero before he could convict the world like the two Apocalyptic witnesses? Does that hit the target? The world is killing those who will convict them of their sins before they can be born. “And [they] blasphemed the God of heaven… and repented not of their deeds.”
Reason is the Shallow Version of Cognition: “Reason is not deep. It cannot be. Heuristics on the other hand are made from the same depth as the situations they resolve.”
The Chimera: Ben Braddock on the origins of the pandemic and a proper response, going forward.
We need a real investigation into the origins of SARS-CoV-2. No matter what the fallout may be. No matter who it implicates. To protect a handful of octogenarian bureaucrats by not revealing the truth and punishing wrongdoing would be to rip out the foundations of justice for future generations. And looking to the future, the United States must renew efforts to stop the development and proliferation of biological weapons, both facially offensive and dual-use. Disrupting the funding by shutting down USAID is a good start. That work should be vigorously pursued until complete. There should be a full and open accounting for the U.S. government’s involvement in bioweapons research, both in the United States and abroad, as in the case of not just Wuhan but biolabs in Ukraine, Georgia, and other former Soviet Republics. And for long-term risk reduction, work should be done to expand and strengthen the BWC and other bilateral and multilateral antiproliferation mechanisms.
Western Cosmopolitanism: Miquel Vila piece on how, as liberalism wanes, there’s opportunity for a revitalized right to establish a new form of Western cosmopolitanism.
Tensions and rivalries will persist, but tensions can also be dynamic. The critical point is that the collapse of the liberal order opens a path for American and European vitalists to transcend both borderless globalism and isolationist nationalism in favor of an expansive civilizational horizon.