From my previous post on the American Revolution, I covered the nature of revolution itself. I treated this topic as consisting of two forms: first, a background of historical events that move in a lineage from a common ancestral ‘cell’ leading inexorably toward revolution, in which I discuss the nature
As a woman who knows her husband very well, my wife taped a Ken Burns PBS special on Thomas Jefferson, knowing that her husband has a keen interest in early American history. So, on a cold, icy February winter evening in central Michigan we set ourselves down to sup and
As a blog devoted primarily to culture, I view culture as the moral repository from which all politics and economics are derived. But culture, in itself, cannot be understood without accounting for the historical situation that develops and produces the arts, philosophies, and values that constitute a civilization. This includes
As I pondered the subject of Advent on this unusually mild and sunny Friday afternoon, November 22, my recollections drew me back to a very sad day of remembrance sixty-one years ago, November 22, 1963. As a fourth grader at the time, the principal of my school announced over the
If you have read the newspapers and watched media accounts of daily news events, you would think that the Russian Federation and its allies were responsible for all that has gone wrong in the world in the third millennium of the Common Era. Whether that is a true account of
In a previous posting (see Prelude: Towards the Consecration of Learning), I made reference to a gathering storm that burst on the face of Europe, in 794 A.D. at the Lindisfarne monastery. It was a story of looting and plunder, murder and mayhem, as the signature calling card of the
BACKGROUND As a new Western Europe was approaching the second millennium, the kingdoms that for centuries had been warring among themselves, and with fighting bands of organized (and disorganized) plunderers fighting for “their share,” the nations of Western Europe as we know them today began to emerge. These “old and
At the beginning of the Common Era, nothing seemed as certain to endure as the Roman Empire. Having defeated all contenders and potential adversaries, Octavian (later given the title Caesar Augustus by a pliant Senate), bestrode the Mediterranean world and western Europe in a showcase of marble monuments to his
IS THERE A SINGLE WISDOM TRADITION? The Wisdom Tradition (sometimes referred to as “wisdom traditions”) is the common pursuit of men and women to find meaning and purpose in this life, and its significance as a whole in the eternity of time. Different wisdom traditions individually express their own coming
Two Views of Church and State Whether talking about Church or State lies the principle of authority applied to the practice of power. By accepting the principle of authority as their starting-point, men and women in former ages did not feel its limitations upon creative thought and action. They viewed
