Peter Lawler

1. Being too lazy or full of Christmas reverie to think up my own post, I’ll just say something about the interesting recent comments of our own James Poulos. 2. It’s now clear that I’ll have to see AVATAR, just to be against it in an informed way. My original strategy was to skip . . . . Continue Reading »

. . . a bleepin’ KINDLE . As Susan McWilliams observes, it amounts to a techno-surrender of “readerly independence” with no obvious benefit. I’m glad I don’t live on some agrarian frontier where all I have around the house are Shakespeare and the Bible (both very . . . . Continue Reading »

So I just finished writing an essay defending the Bush/Kass “dignified moral conflict” approach to bioethics from the coming Obama “expert consensus” approach. Here’s an excerpt: Scientific experts are surely right that if our moods are merely random collections of . . . . Continue Reading »

Judge Jones of Florida says yes—in the legal sense of the word. But some of his colleagues claim that he’s out of touch with the way young people think. . . . . Continue Reading »

The good : Iraq no longer has a civil war. Lots of countries have terrorist problems. So read what Doug Ollivant had to say to the skeptical NPR reporter and begin to assess the significance of the fact that our president was wrong in Oslo to say we’re now fighting two wars. . . . . Continue Reading »

For those postmodern conservatives (and even porchers) wondering what to give ME this year, the gift that will keep on giving is the meticulously enhanced Criterion DVD of the best film by America’s best filmmaker, THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO. Here’s a fine interview with Whit Stillman that . . . . Continue Reading »

So, like every other American who’s not a Porcher, I watched TV and went to the movies over the Thanksgiving holiday. Here’s the best I heard and saw: AN EDUCATION is a genuinely erotic, sophisticated, conversational movie about a brilliant, beautiful girl of sixteen who learns . . . . Continue Reading »

Thanks to all of you who have sent in ideas for the conference at Berry College on teaching American politics. For a variety of reasons originating in my personal incompetence, the conference will now be on April 22. We’re still taking suggestions and looking for volunteers. One of the . . . . Continue Reading »

So I’m now getting around to writing an essay on Locke and Darwin. Here’s a taste pretty relevant to various recent POSTMODERN and CONSERVATIVE posts: Darwin himself had a naïve faith in the almost inevitable natural evolution of the “moral sense” of members of our . . . . Continue Reading »

So here’s my American conclusion of my article critical of European depoliticization: The Americans, as our English friend Chesterton observed with some ambivalence, are the seeming oxymoron, a creedal nation. We are, he memorably said, “a nation with the soul of the church.” . . . . Continue Reading »