Matt Emerson argues that rationalizing away the repugnance of abortion hastens society’s decline :
In high school, I had to read Brave New World and other literature that portrayed a future filled with the results of fundamentalist science. Whether Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Birthmark or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein , the works tried to warn audiences that the drive to conquer nature, human or otherwise, could lead to great, irreparable harm, or to a society where humans would be homogenized and programmed, like iPads with lungs and limbs.
Though I sympathized with the writers’ concerns, I found the stories strange. They seemed only partially relevant. We were a long way off, I thought, from dystopian days.
Eleven years later, quite suddenly, all that literature seems not only interesting, but terrifyingly real. Why now?
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…