Dido and Aeneas in the Shadow of Plato and Pythagoras in Virgil’s Aeneid
Virgil goes to great lengths to describe Queen Dido of Carthage as “tragic.” When we are first introduced to her in the epic, her sad backstory is…
Shakespeare: Political Theorist
When you think of William Shakespeare, the great Bard of the English language, you don’t necessarily think of him as a political theorist. Yes, he wrote about…
The Dragon
When you first looked up at the stars And saw the art of my wings flying free Did you dream about you and me Traveling to worlds…
BookTok and Literary Ideologies
“All art is propaganda,” wrote George Orwell. We can extend it to mean, “All literature is political.” Reading is political because we are political animals. We live…
Breaking History: Israel, Iran, and Trump
“Political science is suffering from a difficulty that originates in its very nature as a science of man in historical existence.” Any political science and understanding of…
Israel’s War and the Crisis of Gnosticism
Israel’s dismantling of the Iranian terror network surrounding it and its strike into the heart of Iran, destroying its nuclear facilities and eliminating top generals and other…
How to Read with Christian Eyes
Is there a specific role for the Christian critic? Critics have all but become avatars of the avant-garde, deliberately shocking and scandalous for the shock value of…
The End of the “Age of Reagan”
Ronald Reagan is the most consequential American president after Franklin Roosevelt. It was during Reagan’s presidency that our modern world transformed toward the integrated, international, free trade,…
Shackled to the Humean Corpse
What is liberalism? That is now the enduring question of contemporary political philosophy, though, in some respects, this goes back to debates in the 1950s that occupied…
2001: An Allegory of the Violence of Technological Evolution
At the beginning of the 2016 film Arrival, the scientist Ian remarks to the linguist Louise that language is not the foundation of civilization. Rather than language, he…
Power, Politics, and Memory
Machiavelli was right that a core aspect of political power was premised on our conceptualized of past heroes. More than offering a vision of realpolitik, as commonly…
The Hopeful Majesty of Aurora Borealis
Civil War Richmond was soon to fall. Union forces were just outside the city, cannons bombarding the trenches of the Army of Northern Virginia at Petersburg. Meanwhile,…
Jonathan Swift: A “Modest” Political Theorist
“Much as he relished the fray, Swift would always deny that he had turned renegade. The degenerates who had taken over government, Parliament, the Crown – it…
The Future of the Humanities
Declarations on the decline and fall of the humanities have been commonplace for the past 40 years but never as loud and sorrowful as now. Concern for…