The title for this Substack comes from Mel Bradford’s collection of essays, as its preface well articulates the mindset from which I operate in our present civilizational moment. Especially meaningful is the following observation:
Reaction is a necessary term in the intellectual context we inhabit late in the twentieth century because to merely conserve is sometimes to perpetuate what is outrageous.
Much content could flow forth from these sentiments, but if I were to connect them in an introductory way to my own thinking I would emphasize my impulse that our Western world is tremendously exhausted, probably even to the point where we no longer are capable of even seeing it within our collective memory.
The more one takes the time to settle the mind and reflect, slowly and painstakingly, on all that has transpired over 1500 years of Western experience, the more one realizes that we are deeply invested in a state of decline.
This opinion, probably accurately described as a civilizational pessimism, is something that I hold firm across the board: politically, culturally, philosophically, and theologically.
Nevertheless, despair, inasmuch as despair is the complete negation of ALL hope, is not a characteristic that defines me. Life is still sweet and this blog is an opportunity for me to practice the enjoyments that I find in reading, reflection, and written expression.
A reader of this Substack will find content in a variety categories: philosophy, stemming from a classical-Platonic-Augustinian framework; cultural observations informed by all sorts of critics of modernity; political reflections inspired by traditionalist and right-wing thinkers of ages gone by; and plenty of revisionist and pro-European history.
Yes, that is all well and good, I agree. But do you like cornbread?