Humanitas articles from March 2003

Humanitas archives from March 2003

Irving Babbitt and cultural renewal.
March 22, 2003... It is tempting to think of Irving Babbitt as a voice crying in the wilderness, a lonely prophet attempting the impossible task of reversing the course of history. Such a view of Babbitt has the bonus of imputing a special virtue to those few,...

Morality and virtue in poetry and philosophy: a reading of Homer's Iliad XXIV.
March 22, 2003... It is apt for Plato to describe the quarrel between poetry and philosophy as an 'ancient' one (Republic 607b). Art and poetry reflect on our humanity; so does philosophy. Perhaps the affinity between poetry and philosophy is most clearly seen...

Lost in place? On the virtues and vices of Edward Casey's anti-modernism.
March 22, 2003... 1. Introductory 1.0 To raise the question of place today is to return to the issue of modernity. (1) While one can certainly imagine all sorts of reasons why philosophers have traditionally busied themselves with investigation of place and...

Ethical individualism and moral collectivism in America.
March 22, 2003... From Alexis de Tocqueville to Robert Bellah and Alan Wolfe, the many observers of the United States invariably call attention to its emphasis on individualism. In the popular culture of American television and movies, the autonomous individual...

From democracy to hyperdemocracy.
March 22, 2003... Some years ago I began to notice that, during question periods following public speeches, otherwise rational human beings who were clearly arguing for opposing points of view were increasingly inclined to cite "democracy" in defence of their...

Jacob and Esau.
March 22, 2003... I. The Birthright In Genesis, we are given a prophecy about the birth of Jacob and Esau that has echoed through the millennia: "Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be separated from thy bowels; And the one people shall be...

Roosevelt's failure at Yalta.
March 22, 2003... For some time now I have been researching a political biography of former Vice President Henry A. Wallace and trying to understand why during his incumbency from 1940 on he adhered so closely to Soviet foreign policy ambitions. In seeking...

Sources of order in history: Voegelin and his critics.(Reviews)(Eric Voegelin: The Restoration of Order)(Book Review)
March 22, 2003... Eric Voegelin: The Restoration of Order, by Michael P. Federici. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2002. xxxvi+249 pp. $24.95 cloth, $14.95 paper. The discipline of political theory has witnessed some dramatic changes over the past half century....

From pre-socratics through postmodernism, Western tradition dialectical at its core.(Reviews)(Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe: Toward the Revival of Higher Education)(Book Review)
March 22, 2003... Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe: Toward the Revival of Higher Education, by Jeffrey Hart. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001. 271 pp. $26.95. In this lucid and gracefully written book, Jeffrey Hart has produced a...