Humanitas articles from March 2000

Humanitas archives from March 2000

Deconstructing Our Civilization.
March 22, 2000... Those who are embattled and struggling against the grain of social and cultural forces in their time bear enduring marks on their mental constitution imprinted by life. The twentieth century offered many examples of this phenomenon. This is...

The Moral Sense in Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim.
March 22, 2000... Lord Jim (1900), Joseph Conrad's fourth novel, is the story of a ship which collides with "a floating derelict" and will doubtlessly "go down at any moment" during a "silent black squall." The ship, old and rust-eaten, known as the Patna, is...

Apostle of a Humane Economy: Remembering Wilhelm Ropke.
March 22, 2000... Wilhelm Ropke entered my life, with immense effect, more than fifty years ago. That was a time in which the political and intellectual climate was rather different from today. The world was just beginning to rise from the ashes of the greatest...

Characterizing Historicist Possibilities: A Reply to Claes Ryn.(Humanitas, vol. 11, p. 86, 1998)
March 22, 2000... A historicist reconstruction. A Wayward Ally? In his "Defining Historicism," published in these pages in 1998, Claes G. Ryn notes that a renewal of historicism has been central to the postmodern turn. But though potentially valuable,...

History as Synthesis.(response to David D. Roberts, in this issue, p. 68)
March 22, 2000... Professor Roberts is correct about our having a great deal in common. [1] Indeed, certain philosophical prejudices and reflexes lead him to exaggerate our disagreement. I do differ with some of what he writes in defense of his interpretation of...

Voyaging with Odysseus: The Wile and Resilience of Virtue.(Critical Essay)
March 22, 2000... Odysseus has lived through many transformations since Homer commemorated him in the Odyssey. None of them, however, has made Homer obsolete. Both the Iliad and the Odyssey have been translated many times. By common consent of those competent to...