Reading room
Reviews, interviews, and cultural criticism engaging questions of beauty, liberty, philosophy, public life, and the foundations of Western society.
The bell rings. Students settle into their seats with the practiced choreography of the modern classroom: a laptop flips open; a phone disappears—mostly—into a hoodie pocket; someone asks whether the assignment can be submitted as a link. Then the teacher writes a question on the board: What is justice? A few students stare as if …
People have been railing against and misrepresenting liberalism almost since its inception. And yet, despite centuries of criticism and countless illiberal attempts to undermine or redefine it, liberalism has produced more peace, more prosperity, and more egalitarianism than any social or political framework humanity has ever known. The historical record of the Western world over …
Polyhymnia COO, James R. Harrigan, joins Max Borders on Underthrow to discuss international things, including recent events in Iran and Venezuela. There’s no way of knowing where any of this is going to end up, but things are trending in a direction for now. https://underthrow.substack.com/p/death-to-dictators-iran-venezuela
I recently heard Jill Lepore, professor of history at Harvard University, on The Good Fight podcast. In discussing campus culture, she expressed dismay at the fact that some of her students had refused to read the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision (1857), which she had assigned. They refused, apparently, because it would cause them (or …
Richard Lorenc writes in the Boston Herald: “Although political conflict is inevitable, we each have the power to steer disagreements away from name-calling and rhetorical head-butting. If we want the activists and politicians to behave differently, the citizens need to behave differently as well.” Amen. And nothing will change until the citizens demand better, which …
In one way or another, the issue of finding meaning in life lies in the innumerable choices we make everyday. Shakespeare’s existential “To be, or not to be” soliloquy from Hamlet suggests that the search for a meaningful life has life and death implications. I agree, and believe the visual arts provide part of the …
Blake Scott Ball has done us the honor of becoming a fellow at Polyhymnia. You can get to know him a little bit here. As it turns out, he is a pretty interesting and smart guy. We’re happy to have him on board, and you will be glad to meet him. https://hvilleblast.com/charlie-brown-una-blake-scott-ball/?fbclid=IwY2xjawOO07FleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeQh8Z7O1XCWYHB2syALKdC2DzqAKSI4RhPnG0K5pyXHRiIy0yfrWw04RrMEA_aem_ytsJxALTtgfE9ESZfimcwQ
Apple TV+ subscribers now have the opportunity to peer into the complex mind of filmmaker Martin Scorcese in a five-part docuseries. And readers now have the opportunity to see what Rebecca Miller learned as she made Mr. Scorcese. “He talks a lot about an obligation to tap into a truth about human beings. And that’s …
Polyhymnia Chief Operating Officer James R. Harrigan and economist Antony Davies discuss the two most important sentences in history, one political and philosophical, the other commercial. These two sentences, taken together, provide the bedrock of Western life and have improved the fortunes of man everywhere they have been embraced. And in the end, it all …
Polyhymnia Senior Fellow Jay Nordlinger joins John Daly on the DalyExpress podcast to discuss, among other things, the Renew Democracy Initiative, free speech consistency, Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, the Young Republicans chat controversy, and, of all things, public restrooms? You can have a look at the full interview here. https://www.bernardgoldberg.com/p/jay-nordlinger-on-free-speech-consistency
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