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Cicero’s 5 Steps to a Good Conversation
- Uncategorized, Culture, Featured, History, Philosophy, Western Civilization
- May 13, 2026

One day early last summer, we pulled our Alcuin Interns out of their normal work routine at Intellectual Takeout and informed them that they would be having a professional development day. This professional development involved going to a fancy club in downtown Minneapolis and taking a course in business etiquette. Knowing the instructor and having
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I am not a fan of talk-show radios. Too many commercials, too little charity. Nor am I a follower of Glenn Beck. I’ve read one of his novels, The Christmas Sweater, and Miracles and Massacres: True and Untold Stories of the Making of America, but otherwise have taken little interest in Beck’s work. So I’m
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When the #MeToo movement was at its height some months ago, I threw my shoulders back, took a deep breath, and let loose with my own story of the “toxic masculinity” I have experienced while working as the sole female in an entirely male office. Time has passed, and instead of seeing the toxic
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Ask a dozen people and you will probably get a dozen different answers for what is wrong with public discourse in America today. It’s the Republicans. It’s the Democrats. It’s the Russians, the Social Justice Warriors, the Millennials, the Baby Boomers, social media, lack of education, lack of opportunity, the list goes on. Whatever the
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In our previous Public Discourse essay on the #MeToo movement and hookup culture, we argued that careful attention to human experience can teach us important and surprising things about the meaning of sex. The same can be said for popular culture. It often tells the truth about sex, in spite of itself. Kristen Roupenian’s short story “Cat
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Marie Kondo’s Netflix show “Tidying Up” is a hit. Apparently, Americans love watching other people throw stuff into trash bags – saying “thank you” to each item first, per the KonMari method. In each episode, Kondo cheerfully sweeps into a new family’s home like a Japanese Mary Poppins and teaches them how to declutter their
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