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March 2, 2020|Aquinas, Aristotle, Aurel Kolnai, Descartes, Enlightenment, Erich Przywara and Postmodern Natural Law, James Bond, John Rawls, Kant

Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

by Graham McAleer|

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

January 10, 2020|Adam Smith, Albert Camus, Aurel Kolnai, Friedrich Hayek, Martin Heidegger, Populist Conservatism, R.R. Reno, Return of the Strong Gods

Can the “Strong Gods” Breathe Life into the Barren West?

by Graham McAleer|

Great Hall Ballroom in Versailles Palace (vichie81 at shutterstock.com)
Reno assumes the alternative is between the weak loves of neo-liberalism and the strong loves of a revivified European conservativism.

December 3, 2018|Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Auguste Comte, Aurel Kolnai, European Union, Humanitarianism, Orestes Brownson, Pope Francis, Soloviev, The Idol of Our Age

The Sacred Rites of Humanity: A Conversation with Daniel Mahoney

by Daniel J. Mahoney|

Daniel Mahoney discusses his new book The Idol of Our Age and how humanitarianism corrupts politics and religion.

June 14, 2018|Aurel Kolnai, phenomenology, Scottish Enlightenment

Of Nobility and Modernity: The Thought of Aurel Kolnai

by Graham McAleer|

Aurel Kolnai
Populism is shot through with the search for nobility, whether in farm animals, vegetables, cakes, sneakers, hubs and engines, or human talents.

May 22, 2017|Aurel Kolnai, Human Rights, John M. Rist, Regensburg Address, What Is Truth?

Contesting the Re-Primitivism of the West

by Graham McAleer|

Does Catholicism expand civilization? Thinking of Thomas Aquinas, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and Gregor Johann Mendel, and the Gothic, Baroque, and Rococo, the answer seems an obvious “yes.”  However, it is also undoubtedly true that a snap survey on any street in the West would find a decent number of respondents either angered by the suggestion or just clueless. John M. Rist thinks the answer certainly “yes.” What’s more, he thinks that re-primitivism (to borrow a term Aurel Kolnai used in his 1938 War Against the West) threatens our civilization, and only Catholicism has the theoretical heft to ward it off. It is…

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October 29, 2015|Aurel Kolnai, Christianity, Jeffrey Goldberg, Louisiana State Penitentiary, Prison Reform

Reforming the ‘Extra-Human’ in Angola Prison

by Graham McAleer|

In 1944, the Hungarian moral and political philosopher Aurel Kolnai (1900-1973) wrote an essay that is indispensable reading for anyone wishing to understand today’s culture. Whether you are pondering the Left/Right split in our politics, the riddle that is Pope Francis, or the peculiar character of Western civilization and its ability to forestall its latest enemies, Kolnai’s “The Humanitarian Versus the Religious Attitude”[1] will help.

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April 29, 2015|Aurel Kolnai, Carl Schmitt, Graham McAleer, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jay W. Richards, Jonathan Witt, Max Scheler

The Shire and the Free Society

by Peter Wilkin|

J  R  R Tolkien

Middle-earth is, in one sense, the story of struggle against inevitable decline. While the Ring is destroyed and a new age of peace is ushered in, there is nevertheless the palpable sense that it is a reprieve as much as a victory—that decline has been temporarily arrested but not halted. After all, Gondor in its replenished splendor under the King is still only an imitation of Númenor; the Elves, wise teachers of Men and lovers of beauty, must depart to the havens and sail westward, never to return. In the midst of triumphant joy there is deep and poignant sorrow.

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Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

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The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

The opinions expressed on Law & Liberty are solely those of the contributors to the site and do not reflect the opinions of Liberty Fund.
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