♦ January 8 marked the seventeenth anniversary of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus’s death. We owe the existence of First Things to his indomitable spirit. His voice—clear, forceful, and often playful—won the loyalty of readers, who, if they were like me, read the back of the magazine first. RJN was a natural leader. He understood that a magazine flourishes when it represents a community of conversation—and disputation. And he knew that communities are made up of persons, not just ideas, and certainly not ideologies. I think of him often, with admiration and gratitude.
♦ Raymond Aron on political life: “Anyone who does not see that there is a ‘struggle for power’ element is naive; anyone who sees nothing but this aspect is a false realist.”
♦ The Financial Times reports:
China last year registered the lowest number of births since records began, marking the fourth consecutive year of population decline as policymakers grapple with a demographic crisis. On Monday, the government reported that 7.92mn babies were born in 2025, down from 9.54mn the year before, and the lowest number of births since 1949.
♦ The Buckley Institute at Yale surveyed the political loyalties of faculty: “In undergraduate departments and the law and management schools, 82.3% of faculty are registered Democrats or primarily support Democratic candidates. By contrast, only 15.4% are independent and 2.3% are Republicans. 27 of 43 undergraduate departments had no Republicans at all.” These are striking numbers, although unsurprising. I’d also like to know data on marriage, and the percentage of faculty who have had children.
♦ David Azerrad makes a perceptive observation about the appeal of anti-Semitism: “From a right-wing perspective, it is easy to see why [Jews have become objects of paranoid suspicion]. The problems we face are so daunting, the odds so overwhelming, that it is easier to rail against the Jews than to undertake the Herculean task of revitalizing the dying nations of the West.” His entire essay, “The Return of the Jewish Question” (Compact, December 22, 2025), is well worth reading.
♦ Regarding the notion that we’re being controlled by a conspiracy, Jewish or otherwise, I often caution against the false optimism of imagining that a secret cabal explains our problems. When it comes to explaining the progressive takeover of higher education, for example, or DEI’s reign over corporate America, my line is this: “No, it’s not a conspiracy. It’s much worse—it’s a consensus.”
♦ Over at the American Conservative, Jude Russo offers a sober assessment of the pro-life cause: We’ve lost. He highlights the situation in Illinois. The state legislature has passed the Medical Aid in Dying Act, which legalizes doctor-provided suicide. Gov. J. B. Pritzker was lobbied by Chicago archbishop Blaise Cupich. Pritzker met with Pope Leo in Rome. The upshot of sustained exposure to the Church’s pro-life teaching: Pritzker cheerfully signed the act into law on December 12. It’s plain for the eye to see, writes Russo, that “the Catholic Church, for better or worse the leading bastion of social conservatism on the life issue in America, has no clout even in the environs of one of its largest and most historically powerful sees.”
It’s not just assisted suicide. As Russo notes, the Trump administration champions IVF. And after Dobbs, the GOP is ready to move beyond abortion controversies. The way forward? Russo: “What remains is political trench warfare,” a hard-nosed, interest-group politics that threatens to withhold or provide support in primaries on the basis of pro-life principles. America’s Catholic bishops largely reject this approach, preferring instead to make immigration policy their focus.
♦ Upon considering whether to take in a child who may or may not be his own, the protagonist of Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure curses the strong gods:
The beggarly question of parentage—what is it, after all? What does it matter, when you come to think of it, whether a child is yours by blood or not? All the little ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults of the time, and entitled to our general care. That excessive regard of parents for their own children, and their dislike of other people’s, is, like class-feeling, patriotism, save-your-soul-ism, and other virtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom.
You won’t be surprised to learn that things do not end well for Jude—or the child.
♦ Higher education is in trouble. Polling suggests a remarkable decline in enthusiasm for college education. In 2010, 75 percent of those polled viewed college education as “very important.” That high level of confidence drifted down to 70 percent in 2013. In 2019, 53 percent checked the “very important” box. The latest Gallup poll reveals that only one-third of Americans (35 percent) regard college education as “very important.” An interesting detail: Even those with college degrees are losing confidence in higher education. In 2013, 78 percent of those with college degrees regarded college education as “very important.” In 2025, only 40 percent held that opinion.
The reasons for this decline? There are many, no doubt: rising costs, ideological capture, decline in the value of a college degree in the job market. Perhaps the most significant rests in the widespread decline of trust in institutions of all sorts, a trend affecting many sectors of society. Whatever the causes, higher education faces strong headwinds.
♦ Wendy Edelbert, Stan Veuger, and Tara Watson dug into immigration data. They produced an AEI report, “Macroeconomic implications of immigration flows in 2025 and 2026: January 2026 update.” Here is their summary: “There was a significant drop-off in entries to the United States relative to 2024 and an increase in enforcement activity leading to removals and voluntary departures. We estimate that net migration was between -10,000 and -295,000 in 2025, the first time in at least half a century it has been negative.”
♦ In the immediate aftermath of the shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents, Archbishop Bernard Hebda of Saint Paul and Minneapolis issued a statement that sounded true and necessary notes. The main thrust:
The loss of another life amidst the tensions that have gripped Minnesota should prompt all of us to ask what we can do to restore the Lord’s peace. While we rightly thirst for God’s justice and for his peace, this will not be achieved until we are able to rid our hearts of the hatreds and prejudices that prevent us from seeing each other as brothers and sisters created in the image and likeness of God. That is as true for our undocumented neighbors as it is for our elected officials and the men and women who have the unenviable responsibility for enforcing our laws. They all need our humble prayers.
I quibble with “undocumented,” a term that evades the reality that some of my neighbors are here illegally. But that is of little moment. I commend Archbishop Hebda for making a crucial point. Whatever measures are undertaken by the Trump administration, those charged with implementing them must respect the dignity of those whom they arrest. And whatever tactics are used by those who seek to protest or block these measures, the dignity of those enforcing the laws must be respected.
♦ George Santayana: “Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.”
♦ Santayana taught philosophy at Harvard for more than two decades. An inheritance from his mother allowed him to resign mid-career. He was not enamored of the classroom.
That philosophers should be professors is an accident, and almost an anomaly. Free reflection about everything is a habit to be imitated, but not a subject to expound; and an original system, if the philosopher has one, is something dark, perilous, untested, and not ripe to be taught, nor is there much danger anyone will learn it.
Not surprisingly, one cannot identify a school of Santayana. Nevertheless, the list of eminent twentieth-century writers and thinkers who credit Santayana with influencing their thought is extensive. Perhaps they prized his habit of mind, which was critical, unsparing, amused, and ironical but, for all that, at peace with the world, against which he did not struggle. That seems to be the spirit evoked by “To an Old Philosopher in Rome,” the poem Wallace Stevens wrote as a tribute to Santayana.
♦ A grant from the John Templeton Foundation is funding the launch of a series of newsletters that will address topics of interest to First Things readers. Two months ago, our first newsletter, “The Fourth Watch,” became available. It’s written by Jim Keating and discusses Catholic matters. Subscribe at fourthwatchcatholic.com.
Our second newsletter is now available: “The Protestant Mind.” Written by Dale Coulter, this newsletter will cover the many and various children of the Reformation. Subscribe at protestantmind.com.
I’ll soon be announcing the launch of our third newsletter, “A Jew from Nowhere,” written by J. J. Kimche.
♦ Mary Harrington will deliver the annual First Things lecture in Washington, D.C., on March 5: “Our Crisis Is Metaphysical.” Her topic will be the strange way in which public debate avoids and even censures the reflection we need to address today’s challenges and controversies. Register for the lecture at firstthings.com/events.
♦ I’m pleased to announce that First Things has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. This grant allows us to expand and enhance our junior fellows program, which provides recent college graduates the opportunity to work with our excellent team and develop their talents as writers and editors. Applications are now open at firstthings.com/fellowships.
The NEH grant also funds a Writer in Residence. Stay tuned. We’ll announce the details of this position soon.
♦ I’d like to thank the many readers who donated to First Things as 2025 came to a close. We were fortunate to received $250,000 in challenge grants from some of our most generous donors. The rest of you stepped up, and we met (actually, exceeded) that challenge. First Things remains a strong voice in the public square because of your unflagging loyalty.
