Category: culture

culture, ISSUE #39 | DEC 2022

Understanding the Golden Age of Hollywood 

(Spoiler warning follows for The Searchers, Sunset Boulevard, and Strangers on a Train)  Because of Hollywood’s influence on America, to understand our current cultural context it is important to understand Hollywood’s Golden Age. Despite the significance of the topic, most people have a faulty view of this time. Classic Hollywood is often seen as an era that either moralized or simply refused to tackle mature … Continue reading Understanding the Golden Age of Hollywood 

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culture, ISSUE #33 | MAY 2021

Imitation, Graced: Ovid on Fine Art

… for earth without heaven cannot find the path of its orbit, nor the influences that give it fruitfulness. —A.G. Sertillanges, O.P., The Intellectual Life     Have you ever wondered what art actually is? Our instinctive answer might be something like “self-expression;” and according to our venerable OED, we’d be on the right track: Art, it says, is the “expression or application of creative skill … Continue reading Imitation, Graced: Ovid on Fine Art

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culture, ISSUE #31 | MAR 2021

Talk Less, Listen More: A Re-evaluation of Our Conversational Life

We live in a culture of prescribed opinions. We are so set on our beliefs that we have already decided we do not agree with someone even before they have had a chance to defend themselves. That is like declaring the accused guilty before the trial has even started. These behaviors are not necessarily universal, but they are highly prevalent in our society and need … Continue reading Talk Less, Listen More: A Re-evaluation of Our Conversational Life

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culture, ISSUE #31 | MAR 2021

Metaphysical, Not Political

One of the best-known works of John Rawls, a Harvard scholar known for his prolific political writings, especially in the field of criminal justice, is entitled: Justice as Fairness: Political, not Metaphysical. In this work, Rawls presents a famous analogy which he refers to as the “veil of ignorance.”He argues that, in juridical procedure—such as the trial of a criminal—one must deliberately put aside all … Continue reading Metaphysical, Not Political

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culture, ISSUE #30 | OCT 2020

Mythical Samizdat

Mythology has long allowed cultures to connect with and find meaning in their past, encouraged them to work in the present, and taught them to hope for their future. By grounding individuals in their environment and tying them to their community, myth served as the grounding for nearly all cultures and civilizations throughout the Ancient and pre-Modern world. Myth teaches morals, and a civilization without … Continue reading Mythical Samizdat

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culture, ISSUE #26 | OCT 2019

A Sense for the Sacred

There they were, standing in neat rows as if in a dance aerobics class, rock-stepping and swinging their arms to music funneled out of the tiny speakers of a smartphone. The only problem was that this was definitely not a dance studio and these people were not in a dance aerobics class. Instead they, along with a diverse crowd of other visitors, were in the … Continue reading A Sense for the Sacred

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culture, ISSUE #26 | OCT 2019

Comic Heroes of the Demos

Captain America, Luke Skywalker, and Harry Potter are ideal “heroes” for what Nietzsche would call a “democratic” soul. These caricatures of childhood imagination encourage a reversion to puerile notions of unearned self-importance among their devotees. The protagonists of these stories come from common backgrounds but are, within the first quarter of the film, serendipitously granted magical powers and a world-changing mission. To their audience, these … Continue reading Comic Heroes of the Demos

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culture, ISSUE #21 | MAY 2018

The Flower Industry

When I stepped into The Blossom Shop in downtown Hillsdale, I had no idea that I was entering a war zone in the global economy. It hardly seemed like embattled territory. I learned that tulips are a dollar a stem. They’re shy in the cold, but once you take them from the refrigerator and set them on your kitchen table, they’ll open right up. They … Continue reading The Flower Industry

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culture, ISSUE #20 | MAR 2018

The Rage of Caliban: Millennials and the New Aestheticism

No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. —Oscar Wilde, Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray The video opens with a typical vlog set-up: A woman sits centered in front of the camera, her pristine background out of focus. The Scandinavian minimalist aesthetic is enough to make any 22-year-old vaguely covetous. Her platinum blonde hair … Continue reading The Rage of Caliban: Millennials and the New Aestheticism

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culture, ISSUE #20 | MAR 2018

The Unlikely Peripatetic, or, A Postscript to the Paperclip

He meets your eye from the book’s broad flyleaf, a vivid figure on a ground of flame blue. Piercing through a quizzical squint and the flash-fixed vapor of a cheeky cigar, the gaze is more forward than one expects from such age. Facing the title page’s monoglyph—Design—the portrait reads like a dare. In a way, it is. A household name in his native UK, Terence … Continue reading The Unlikely Peripatetic, or, A Postscript to the Paperclip

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