Rallies. Insults. Slightly awkward baby-holding. In most ways, this year’s election is just as crass and theatrical as ever. Yet as the American public heads to the polls, the 2024 cycle is strikingly different for one key reason: its godlessness. …
It’s time to re-enchant the world
The meaning of the leaf is the leaf, as I once heard Roger Scruton say. Perhaps it was an original coinage from the Sage of Sundey Hill Farm, but it has the slight feel of a Zen koan: a …
Don’t be deluded by delulu
The Instagram influencer — let’s call her Meg — gazes at the camera and shares “one tiny trick” for life success. Whatever happens in your life, she says, you need to repeat the same phrase in your head: “How does …
The allure of American mysticism
American politics has given the wilder forms of American religion bad press lately. Senator J.D. Vance’s critics often identify his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 2019 as contributing to his lurch to pro-natalism and nativism. The journalist Kathryn Joyce recently …
One hundred years of platitudes
The worst sort of books make you feel clever without actually making you more so. They flatter your intelligence, encouraging you to nod along in smug agreement at some faux deep observation, giving you a sense of achievement without having …
