By Judd Birdsall on May 1, 2003
While attending Brown University, Adoniram Judson came to reject the pious Congregational ism of his upbringing in favor of Deism. His 1807 valedictory address hailed the value of free inquiry unhindered by religious faith. A few years after graduation, however, the ambitious freethinker’s intellectual confidence was shattered by a haunting experience in a drafty New [...]
Posted in Features | Tagged May 2003, Volume I Number III
By Alan Silverman on May 1, 2003
The only liberty I mean, is a liberty connected with order; that not only exists along with order and virtue, but which cannot exist at all without them.
—Edmund Burke
Conservatism is the doctrine of pragmatic pessimism. A conservative sees the human race as nature’s flawed sensation—a race whose talents have brought phenomenal progress, yet whose defects—primarily [...]
Posted in Features | Tagged May 2003, Volume I Number III
By Stephen Beale on May 1, 2003
Recently, David Frum&mdashthe wordsmith behind the axis of evil locution—described war as the “great clarifier.” Yet, just as often, war is the source of great confusion. Many major wars of the twentieth century illustrate this rule. For example, the Great War thrust Europe into an existential crisis and Vietnam crippled America’s confidence as the leader [...]
Posted in Editorials | Tagged May 2003, Volume I Number III
By Alex Schulman on May 1, 2003
The modern left/right divide, which dates to the pre-terror days of the French Revolution, has grown calcified, stale, and altogether useless. Both” conservative” and “liberal” philosophies, as we now know them—for the two designations meant something quite different only a century ago—suffer from internal contradictions that render their hard line ideologues intellectually bankrupt. What is [...]
Posted in Features, Lead | Tagged May 2003, Volume I Number III
