Modern society is infected with sentimentality—“the cult of feeling”—and it’s screwing up our education system. That’s the thesis of British cultural commentator Theodore Dalrymple in his book Spoilt Rotten: The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality. According to Dalrymple, sentimentality has its roots in Romanticism and a Rousseauian view of children as having been born in a
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The Washington Post has published its annual list of the “biggest Pinocchios of the year” for 2015. The list is almost entirely composed of politicians of all stripes telling whoppers. No surprise there. What was surprising was the inclusion of the phrase “Hands up, don’t shoot” which was spawned after Michael Brown of Ferguson, MO
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On December 15, 1791, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution were ratified, giving Americans their famed Bill of Rights. Sadly, many Americans don’t even know the freedoms they are guaranteed in the first and most famous amendment. According to the 2015 State of the First Amendment survey: “When asked to name the five specific
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Samuel Eliot Morison was the Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History at Harvard when World War II broke out. He went to President Roosevelt and asked if there would be an opportunity to write the history of the war while the combatants were alive and before “the ships were broken up and the sailors had
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In The Sword of Imagination, Russell Kirk has a beautiful line about the natural condition of man. It is a strong reminder that while our civilization seems strong and our freedoms are cherished, they must always be nourished and cultivated in each generation. Here’s the line: “Order, justice, and freedom are garden plants; the natural
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Mass human psychology plays a major role in determining who gets elected in this country of ours. That psychology, though, varies wildly depending on current events. Some men benefit from the times and some men are destroyed by the times. Would George Washington be electable today? Would Lincoln have succeeded at any other time than
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