On the Square Today

Peter J. Leithart on the nude in a pornographic age :

We live in a pornographic age that falls dismally short of creating what Pope Paul VI called a “climate favorable to education in chastity.” But we misconstrue the problem if we worry only about the sheer number of unclothed bodies, the sheer expanse of exposed flesh, that appears on TV, in film, or on the web. The fundamental problem is not a lack of clothing but the widespread failure of mass and high culture to represent the truth about the human body. We no longer have a visual idiom that enables us to depict the beauty of the human form without arousing lust. Combatting pornography requires not the suppression but the revival of the nude.

Also today, R.R. Reno on Dinesh D’Souza’s misguided film :

The success of Dinesh D’Souza’s new movie, 2016: Obama’s America , leads me to revisit my thoughts about his recent book on which the film is based, The Roots of Obama’s Rage . I was and remain unconvinced by the argument that Obama’s anti-colonialist father explains his governing mentality. By my reckoning, the emerging postmodern liberalism of Columbia University circa 1982 (where I was for a semester as a visiting student) explains Obama pretty well.