Fatherhood and Baseball

My son is now a toddler. Which means as a father you transition into the role of a goalie. Doing your best to keep him from putting things in his mouth, walking somewhere he shouldn't, and in general pulling out all of the authoritarian instincts you'd rather not have but all of us do as humans. Or putting it more realistically and optimistically, the protection instincts. And just like the freedom vs. order battles we have as we get older, I will say that it's better to eventually fall down and learn rather than constantly have an overly-protective parent lurking about all the time. But there will be a time and a place for that. As the years go by, one of these places will be the sport of baseball. 

 I'm just out of my rookie season as a new Dad, but as your role expands with each passing month and year, you get more and more to do, which is good. I find myself preparing and planning the future for the family more and more down to the smallest detail. My wife and I are planning to eventually move from our "starter home" to a "family forever home" for instance. And the detail on my mind the most has nothing to do with the home and everything to do with proximity to downtown Little League baseball fields. 

 My father was a home salesman and a road warrior but he was a bit less busy in the summer as home show season was over. He'd set aside time and coach my Little League and youth baseball teams. It was the most time we ever spent together when I was that age and I imagine the story repeats itself all across the country, or at least it did for a few generations. The ending of Field of Dreams works for a reason after all. But I think about those baseball fields, and aim to make sure the home where our children make most of our memories is nearby. Now maybe the children won't like baseball? Would I be a bit disappointed? Of course. But I'd adjust. Because as the years go by you realize that the game, as great as it is, was just the excuse. 

 This is my second blog for The Frank Forum, a space dedicated to the revitalization of America's distinct civic culture. Both articles deal with fatherhood and families as the theme and I'll confess that will almost always be the case. For those that want to read more distinctly political, historical, and policy writings my Substack, Twitter, and occasional op-eds and upcoming book co-authored with Gavin Wax will provide plenty of that. But when Frank invited me to contribute here and I read what he was trying to accomplish I realized it complimented what I was trying to accomplish too, just as our conversations over the past few years have done that. I'm growing increasingly fond of the communitarian word as well. For while America was founded to secure the blessings of liberty, the founders also understood that such a nation could not long endure without the "little platoons" of association, the Tocqevillian-observed civic culture, and in the case of much of what I'll write about here and elsewhere, without the family. 

 Families are an obstacle to the left's ambitions. Families are also the renewal and recovery point for this country. The coalition that makes it easier to raise a family in this country will rightfully govern for a long, long time, and nationally, it offers our best chance of civic renewal and recovering a communitarian a moment that compliments our individual liberties rather than competes with them. Herein lies the real future of the right. Populist as well as communitarian in the most time-tested and tradition-minded of ways. It won't be easy, but great things never are easy to build up and make great. For if this American song in the 21st Century is to soar, and if we do not pick up and reconnect with communitarian traditions, we're vulnerable to more and more cultural and economic collectivism, statism, and the same old disastrous road to serfdom the well-meaning liberty-minded people were so worried about in the middle of last century. 

Alone Together

I have good news, and bad news.

The good news: People are finally starting to report on America's chronic loneliness epidemic. "Why is that good news?", you may ask. Well, the fact of the matter is that problems aren't solved until they are first addressed. So the fact that I'm hearing more about loneliness is ultimately a good thing. As per my last post, even this administration, for all its faults, is acknowledging the problem. In May, if you recall, the U.S. Surgeon General released an 80+ page report detailing America's fallen civic state. Loneliness, the report posits, is akin to chain-smoking. 

But anyway, this is a positive development. For too long, our leaders and their cohorts in the legacy media have swept this problem under the dusty rug of delusion. The flimsy façade of normalcy has triumphed over the truth.

During the age of COVID-hysteria, for example, little was said about the countless deaths of despair across the country. While the bottom-third of every major news network had a real-time ticker of COVID cases and casualties, there was no such ticker for cases of mental illness and suicide. We are social animals; isolation will kill us. 

At least we are paying attention now... 

The bad news: People are hurting. We are feeling the effects of being alone. 

This from The Hill:

Nearly 30 percent of American households comprise a single person, a record high. Scholars say living alone is not a trend so much as a transformation: Across much of the world, large numbers of people are living alone for the first time in recorded history. 

It is incumbent on us to stand athwart this "transformation". We must never except this as the new normal. Because if we do collectively shrug our shoulders and become indifferent to this reality of increased atomization, we will be, in effect, sowing the seeds of our own national coming apart. 

Alright, enough of this doom and gloom...

I do genuinely believe that we can rebuild a communitarian culture. It will take small communitarian acts. 

An example:

My friends and I just recently started a new tradition: Beer and wings night. On the first Saturday of every month, our little group goes to the neighborhood bar to drink and socialize. While this may seem trivial, it actually is not. This is, in a very micro sense, a small step towards a civic revival. If more people could get together and form book clubs, poker nights, and beer and wing nights, our country would be in much better shape. 

So...what are you waiting for?

 

 

Communitarianism in Florida

"The one greatest predictor of your longevity and health is your level of social interaction", University of Miami School of Architecture Professor Joanna Lombard told town planner Victor Dover. People, in short, need each other. To live atomized, lonely lives is not only sad and dull; it is actually bad for your well-being. 

Last May, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy admonished Americans that feeling isolated and lonely is as detrimental to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. The lengthy report, titled Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, painted a rather grim picture of, what the late Amitai Etzioni would have referred to as, America's "Radical Individualist" cultural ethos. 

From the report:

Loneliness is far more than just a bad feeling - it harms both individual and societal health. It is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death. The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. 

This should scare you. By forgoing social interaction and civic engagement, we are, in effect, killing ourselves. While working remotely in your pajamas and binge-watching Netflix is fun and convenient, it is so unhealthy. 

Professor Lombard, however, says that city planning can encourage social-connectedness. A city replete with verdant walkways, bicycle lanes, and balconies and front porches can facilitate a healthier and less atomized citizenry. 

Lombard and Dover look to Lake Wales, Florida as a case in point. "When I look around at Florida and I see who's doing what", Lombard said, "I feel like Lake Wales has all the pieces." 

This short interview prompted me to look into Lake Wales. "Where is this magical communitarian paradise?", I wondered. Lake Wales is a small city of approximately 17,000 residents situated in Polk County, which is in the central part of the state. 

It is breathtakingly picturesque.

Robert Steutville writes about the interview in Public Square:

Dover's interview is part of a planning effort that Dover, Kohl & Partners is helping to lead for Lake Wales, Florida. The Lake Wales Envisioned Initiative is working with the City, citizens, and other groups, to plan a healthier, economically stronger, and more sustainable future for the suburban municipality in Central Florida, a town that is at the heart of a current mass migration into the Sunshine State. 

New Yorkers, in particular, have been moving to Florida in droves. In April of this year, Selim Algar wrote in a New York Post op-ed that the mass exodus of New Yorkers leaving for Florida "wasn't just a pandemic thing." "According to new figures from the Florida Department of Highway Safety" Algar writes, "10,824 Empire Staters swapped out their licenses in the first three months of this year." 

People crave community, and if there is a dearth of societal bonds in their current ZIP code, they will flee to somewhere else. In this case, Florida. 

 

The Right's Circular Firing Squad

Sohrab Ahmari, Ross Douthat, and David French

Can't we all just get along? Of course we can't; that would be too easy!

The squabbles between the "new right" and the libertarian-oriented free-marketeers continue, and they show no signs of abating. In fact, the fissures look to be expanding, as NatCons ramp up their attacks on "zombie-Reaganism" and more establishment-types accuse populists of being undisciplined and overly pugnacious. 

David French, a prominent anti-Trump conservative and former editor of The Dispatch, has a Twitter feed inundated with the kind of leftist rhetoric you'd expect from Buzzfeed or Jacobin. Jonah Goldberg has also been a leading anti-populist voice on the right, often criticizing the still burgeoning MAGA cadre. 

But make no mistake, French and Goldberg are highly intelligent. In fact, I would recommend listening to The Remnant (Goldberg's podcast) or going through French's old substack, French Press (archived on The Dispatch website.) What you'll find is, mostly, thoughtful commentary. Unfortunately, much, though not all of it, has been tainted by anti-Trump fanaticism. 

Goldberg going after Gorka:

Seb Gorka’s knowledge of the truth has never once been a major factor in determining what comes out of his mouth. https://t.co/s25Q0ciFcA

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) June 23, 2023

The pugnacious populists, however, don't get off scot-free. Oftentimes, their social media presence is unnecessarily combative and, sometimes, tasteless. Though there's nothing wrong with critiquing the old GOP playbook (in fact, I encourage it!), there's a thoughtful way to do it. 

Josh Hammer, who I am a big fan of, lays it on a tad thick here:  

I propose a new term for this kind of zombie Reaganite BoomerCon catnip political messaging:

“American Dream-ism” https://t.co/j9vDUutYgM

— Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) May 21, 2023

If our goal is to take on the radical left, this is no way to do it. We may disagree on economic policy, foreign interventionism, and decorum - but we can all agree that far-left decadence is facilitating the erosion of the West's moral and cultural fabric. Either we hold our noses and join forces, or we succumb to a very dangerous movement.  

Who is the Communitarian Candidate?

Of the dozen or so Republican and Democratic candidates who have announced White House bids so far, who among them are talking about the revitalization of America's civic culture and communitarian spirit? The answer: few, if any. Outside of the occasional "we are stronger together" platitude, both parties seem to care little about restoring a Tocquevillian America. 

The progressive left and the National Conservative right both seem to be accepting, if not blatantly supportive, of the burgeoning role of the State in American affairs. And, as Tocquevillians posit, an encroaching State diminishes the robustness of community life, made up of families and small localities. In fact, in many ways, these two factions, who claim to despise one another, are actually very much alike. 

Will Hoyt eloquently describes this kind of horseshoe theory in a recent article for Front Porch Republic:

Current-day iterations of progressive and conservative positions tend to generate excitement because they are billed as new, be that iteration the current New Left critique of FDR's reliance on southern Democratic Jim Crow-oriented political machines to secure a New Deal, or the current New Right "common good" critique of neo-con belief that Catholic social teaching and American founding principles are compatible, or the Trump-inspired critique of "theocon" agendas and Reaganite economics. Ultimately, though, each of these ascendent political ideologies privileges a strong, massively centralized state...

So back to the candidates...

Who are the ones that are falling into the right/left political horseshoe, and who are rising above and promoting a communitarian image of America? Again, we are looking at slim pickings here. But, there is one candidate in particular that stands out to me...

Marianne Williamson

I know, I know. You're thinking I've lost my mind. But the fact of the matter is that Marianne Williamson is, at least rhetorically, the most communitarian candidate in the pack. Though she is often brushed away as some sort of tarot card-reading loon, she offers incredibly thoughtful and intelligent insights about the state of American society. 

I often think about this moment in the 2020 Democratic primary debates:

Williamson, instead of opining on what kind of healthcare policy we should adopt, dared to question why so many Americans get sick in the first place. And it's undoubtedly true that a healthy community life is contingent on a healthy citizenry. Policy prescription, though, falls short. Williamson understands that what is needed is an ethos change. Or rather, a spiritual reawakening. 

Or better yet, check out this exchange she had with Sean Hannity last month (skip to 6:00):

Here, Williamson suggests that we combat the inevitable human feeling of alienation with love and community. "We are here to love one another", she says, "We do not feel deeply at home on a spiritual level on this planet because this world is not based on love the way it should be." It doesn't get more communitarian than that...

Now, I also understand that Williamson is obviously a progressive. She does not necessarily see an expanding federal government as a bad thing. That's not very Tocquevillian. But, no one is perfect!

Do yourself a favor and watch this 1997 talk from Williamson on volunteerism and the civil sector. What you'll hear is someone who embodies small-c conservatism and civic life. 

 

 

Ode to Jack Arnold

One of my favorite television shows growing up was The Wonder Years. It was a nostalgic show that today works for me on two levels. Its pilot debuted just after the Super Bowl in January, 1988 and the show ran through 1993, covering a narrative time span about twenty years prior. And while it works on that level, it has a secondary layer of nostalgia today because it cannot be found in its original version in high-quality, modern-day home viewing. Understandably, music rights to this classic show became prohibitively expensive after its initial airing and most updated releases of the show have included different songs, which totally changes the experience. So in many ways, this additional layer of nostalgia has to do with a show that has essentially become "lost." Perhaps fitting of its coming-of-age themes.

While the protagonist and narrator (voiced by Daniel Stern) was Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage), the Arnold family itself and specifically the Dad, Jack Arnold (Dan Lauria), has gained more attention and a newfound appreciation as I've gotten older. 

In one episode when Kevin brought home a school assignment to write a biography of themselves that was stumping him, he posed the question instead to his father to sum up his life: "I get up at 5am, I fight traffic, I bust my hump all day, I fight traffic again, and come home... And I pay my taxes." 

In episodes three and four of the debut season his stoic demeanor receives greater depth and nuance. Episode three, "My Father's Office", Kevin goes to work with his Dad and sees firsthand the daily side of his grumpiness. Berated by superiors in his middle management supervisor position at a company called NORCOM, Jack Arnold begins revealing his secondary arc to the audience of a stoic and quiet hero, both to his children and as a symbol of the traditionalistic men of the age. 

Jack Arnold served in Korea, in the Marines, went to college, got married, took on a mortgage, and raised three children. In the canon of the show he did not reach the age of 50, dying at 49. His youngest, protagonist Kevin, finished high school and no doubt had his father on a pedestal through the very narration we hear throughout, even if not at the time of the events. If the men of America today could be even half the man Jack Arnold was depicted as -- we'd be just fine.

In one of these father-son episodes Kevin asked Jack what he wanted to do, after the standard mid-century American male answer of, "you mean other than professional baseball player?" - the senior Arnold went on to talk about how he wanted to be a captain of a ship, one of those big ocean liners. "Be out there on the ocean in the middle of the night, navigating by the stars. Course, they use instruments for all that now, but... I didn't know that. Yeah, I thought it would be the greatest thing in the world."

Kevin then for a moment defended his father's youthful dream with "you'd have made a great ship's captain, Dad."

Jack demurred, "nah, probably not... You can't do every silly thing you want to in life. You have to make your choices... You have to try and be happy with them. I think we've done pretty well, don't you?"

Yeah, I think we've done great. 

You relate to Kevin when you're young and think the adults of the world are squares, then when you get older you rally around the instinctive and old reliable conservative tradition of men like Jack Arnold, whose early in death mentioned in the show's finale need not be the fate of American fathers raising sons and daughters. 

Our renewal, victory, and greatness -- must rest first and foremost -- in our presence within the home life of the next generation of Americans so that they might hold the line and defeat the twin evil forces of postmodernism and relativism, which have added nothing of lasting value to the historical conversation and human experience. 

Save your sons and daughters, and be a father. Doing so will save and renew this country. 

Breakfast Clubs and Cocktail Parties: a Small Step Toward Civic Renewal

I keep on hearing writers say that we are in the midst of a "loneliness epidemic". Westerners - Americans especially - have become dangerously atomized and dislodged from society. Our social fabric is tattered. So much so, that it is beginning to look like Akakiy Akakievitch's overcoat in that classic short story by Nikolai Gogol. Our sense of community is threadbare. 

Thankfully, I am starting to see more literature on our decline in community. A problem cannot be solved unless it is first addressed, right? 

I recently wrote a piece about our problem of unbelonging and atomization for National Review a few days ago. You can read that here. 

And while writing about the problem is a good start, it is, in and of itself, insufficient. We need prescription. We need a course of action. A fundamental question that we should all ask ourselves: how can I become more involved in my local community? 

We can't snap our fingers and hope that Americans undergo a civic renewal with burgeoning voluntary associations and bowling leagues. But what we can do is take action in our own lives. While this may seem inconsequential, it is so important. 

I recently read a fantastic piece by Ben Christenson in Front Porch Republic, a thoughtful communitarian publication. In it, Christenson writes about his experience hosting a cocktail party. Inspired by a new book, The 2-Hour Cocktail Party: How to Build Big Relationships with Small Gatherings by Nick Gray, Christenson meticulously planned a successful 20-person gathering. He even went so far as to create an event page, where guests RSVPed for the party; send out multiple reminder emails to attendees; write short bios for each guest; and supply everyone with their own name tag. While going to this length may seem gratuitous, this may be exactly what the doctor ordered!

Would hosting a small gathering here and there be too much to ask? And name tags are actually really inexpensive. Here's a set of 160 for just $6! 

If this still seems too daunting, though, why not organize a monthly breakfast club (and no, I'm not referring to the hip-hop radio show)? This could consist of just you and a few friends. Here's a funny little skit about breakfast clubs by Buffalo, NY comic, Joe Pera: 

By leaving the confines of our apartments and socializing with friends at the local diner, we are taking small steps in repairing America's tattered overcoat. 
 

The Futility of Right-Wing Squabbling

Bill Kristol, Donald Trump

Dr. Daniel Pitt, a fantastic conservative thinker, writer, and professor of politics at the University of Sheffield, is well worth a follow on Twitter. His tweets connote a kind of conservatism that I like to call "positive conservatism", free of partisan platitudes and unnecessary combative rhetoric. 

I've written about him for my blog before. You can find that here. 

Here's a sanguine post of his from a few days ago:

#Conservatism is about love.❤️ pic.twitter.com/AGGcg65s9X

— Dr Daniel Pitt (@DanJTPitt) April 30, 2023

I'm afraid, though, that many so-called conservatives don't understand this point. Conservatism, to many social media provocateurs, seems to be less about love, and more about nasty internal skirmishing.  

Right now it is the NatCons (a term that derives from the Edmund Burke Foundation's National Conservatism project) and more libertarian-adjacent conservatives that are feuding relentlessly. I've heard some refer to the latter group as Freedom-Cons to convey their allegiance to classical liberalism. The former group, conversely, appears to be much more open to the idea of state involvement and Hamiltonian economic policy (sometimes referred to as industrial policy or protectionism). 

Okay, I'm digressing here...

The bottom line is that these two groups are not preaching the "positive conservatism" doctrine; they are, instead, engaging in a rather mean-spirited ideological civil war, wherein the NatCons call the libertarian-types "neoconservatives" (which is now commonly used as a pejorative by populist MAGA-types) and the libertarian-types say that the NatCons are insufficiently versed in the foundational conservative texts (Edmund Burke, David Hume, etc...). 

But where is the love? All I see is bickering...

We ought to get back to, what is sometimes referred to as "small-c conservatism", defined as a reverence for tradition, community, and Western culture. 

William Schambra is a great person to check out. I encourage you to read this piece he wrote for The Brookings Review in 1997.  

Can Growing Associational Membership Be a Bad Thing for Liberal Democracy?

Antifa, a violent network of left-wing agitators, is back at it again.

On Sunday April 24th, a small cadre of antifa members physically assaulted peaceful anti-drag time story hour protestors outside a pizza joint in Fort Worth, Texas. 

In a surveillance video recording, Samuel Fowlkes, a member of the domestic terrorist organization, is seen pepper spraying the peaceful protestors. Other antifa activists brandished firearms. 

Ultimately, Fowlkes and two other antifa militants were detained and subsequently arrested by Fort Worth police. 

This got me thinking: Antifa, though obviously deranged, is still an example of civic associationism, no?

These young and troubled people are engaged in group activity. And antifa and other fringe political organizations form their own activist communities, wherein they socialize, communicate with one another, and establish norms of trust and reciprocity. 

And while I and other self-proclaimed Tocquevilleans extol the virtues of civic engagement and associationism, it is evident that not all forms of group activity are good for the broader society. In fact, groups like antifa emit, what some might call, negative externalities. That is to say, these groups, though maybe trusting amongst their members internally, are distrusting and even hostile towards outsiders and people whom they deem to be a threat to their group. 

 Francis Fukuyama wrote about negative externalities and strong group ties in his 2001 essay for Third World Quarterly titled, Social capital, civil society and development:

A society made up of the Ku Klux Klan, the Nation of Islam, the Michigan Militia, and various self-regarding ethnic and racial organisations may score high in terms of average group size, numbers of groups, and cohesiveness, yet overall it would be hard to say that such a society had a large stock of social capital. Group affiliation can therefore produce negative externality which we can think of as the radius of distrust. The larger the radius of distrust, the greater the liability that group represents to the surrounding society...

While antifa is not an ethnic or racial group (though they tend to be overwhelmingly white), they are, undoubtedly, clannish and pose a significant threat to their surrounding communities. 

Aside from Fukuyama, whom I quote invertetely, others too have questioned whether Tocquevilleans are correct in asserting that robust civic society is always a sign of a healthy and liberal democracy.

I was recently reading an incredibly thought-provoking essay by Columbia University professor Sheri Berman, wherein she makes the daring assertion that the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany was facilitated, not by a dearth in civil society, but rather by an abundance of it. At first glance, her thesis seemed preposterous to me. How, I wondered, could a vibrant civil society possibly lead to something so evil? After thoroughly reading the essay multiple times, however, I began to find some serious merit in her argument. 

Burgeoning civic associations during the era of the Weimar Republic were, in large part, a response to the citizenry's deep-seated distrust of the new democratic government, which they thought was unresponsive to their needs. Instead of looking to the government to solve their problems, Germans in the 1920s formed voluntary associations, sometimes referred to as intermediate associations, to effectuate change. These groups, Berman asserts, did not contribute to the robustness or health of liberal democracy, but rather undermined it. So, these groups, which harbored utter disdain towards the Weimar government, ultimately received Hitler and the Nazi Party well. 

Context, however, matters a great deal here. This obviously was not the case for America. The America of the early 20th century, for instance, already had an established groundwork of democratic institutions. Therefore, there was never any danger of a rogue civil society giving rise to a Nazi-esc government. Berman notes this in her essay:

A striking implication of this analysis is that a flourishing civil society does not necessarily bode well for the prospects of liberal democracy. For civil society to have the beneficial effects neo-Tocquevilleans posit, the political context has to be right: absent strong and responsive political institutions, an increasingly active civil society may serve to undermine, rather than strengthen, a political regime.

In essence, the pure Tocquevillean thesis that civic associationism leads to a more vibrant democracy falls a tad short. A seasoned democratic institutional foundation is an absolute prerequisite. Communitarian-types would be well served to include this caveat. 

So while antifa and other groups may emit terrible negative externalities, they ultimately will not give rise to an American Third Reich... 

 

 

More Defenses of Community...

I was going through my ever-expanding trove of books the other day and found a couple of passages about community that I'd like to share. 

Warning: libertarians and those who subscribe to a rugged individualistic worldview will find these passages hard to bear. 

But, regardless of your ideology, there is simply no denying the ubiquity of groups in everyday life. And, furthermore, just because you are a part of a larger collective, doesn't mean your individual character is trivial. 

Here's a bit from Deborah Stone's Policy Paradox:

Influence, cooperation, and loyalty are powerful forces, and the result is that groups and organizations, rather than individuals, are the building blocks of the polis...people belong to institutions and organizations, even when they aren't formal members. They participate in organizations as citizens, employees, customers, students, taxpayers, voters, and potential recruits, if not as staff, managers, or leaders. Their opinions are shaped by organizations, and they depend on organizations to represent their interests.

Stone is not downplaying the role of the individual here, but rather elevating the the reader's awareness of the role of groups. 

I think, from my observations, that there is a misleading and, ultimately, false dichotomy between individualism and communitarianism in American discourse. Though it is true that communitarians see individuals as being part of something larger, and not just atomized, self maximizing units - they don't discredit the role of individuality in society. Communities, after all, are comprised of individuals. And this communitarian view is not out of step with classical liberalism. It is, however, radical libertarians who have far over-emphasized the role of isolated individuals. 

American culture is unique in its susceptibility to radical libertarian thought. Even in the context of the Western world, we represent a unique position. You won't see the English, German, or French, for example, waving around "Don't Tread on Me" flags. Nor did we see them resist the COVID-19 lockdowns anywhere to the extent that we did. 

America, perhaps because of our initial struggle against the monarchical British, has an especially rebellious culture. We are a nation of punk rockers, and that is both good and bad.

On the flipside, there is something immensely admirable about the collectivist nature of other non-Western cultures. 

On that note, here's something from Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order:

For East Asians, East Asian success is particularly the result of the East Asian cultural stress on the collectivity rather than the individual. "The more communitarian values and practices of the East Asians - the Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese, Hong Kongers, and the Singaporeans - have proved to be clear assets in the catching up process", argued Lee Kuan Yew. 

The lesson here: culture matters. 

As Westerners, we are more inclined to view the world through an individualist lens. This isn't necessarily wrong, but we must also utilize our complimentary communitarian lens. I wrote about this in National Review a while back. 

Before I sign off, I would like to share a great communitarian website I just discovered: https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/

Lots of great content there!

Read, Read, Read...

Francis Fukuyama, Samuel Huntington

It occurred to me recently that there are many foundational texts in the political science literature that I have carelessly glossed over. 

As I skimmed through my bookshelf, I found a plethora of books that I love, but that are perhaps somewhat unimportant in the larger context of American and geopolitical affairs. While I am a proponent of finding your niche and delving in deeper, it is also necessary to develop a rudimentary understanding of certain works that have contributed greatly to the Western canon. Doing so expands the mind and intellect of the reader, and allows him to participate in a broader range of conversations concerning political discourse. 

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with a friend about Francis Fukuyama's earth-shattering literary masterpiece, The End of History and the Last Man, a book that I am very fond of. During our conversation, my friend mentioned Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations, a work that he claimed was antithetical to Fukuyama's thesis about liberal democracy as a prevailing global ideology. 

As he continued to speak passionately about Huntington's contributions to the global conversation surrounding culture and ideology, I began to feel a sense of shame: I had never read that book. 

Having only an elementary conceptualization of Huntington's thesis, I became reluctant to contribute further to the conversation. I knew that I had to get my hands on that book. 

Reading it now, I understand why Henry Kissinger called it "...one of the most important books to have emerged since the end of the Cold War." In fact, even Francis Fukuyama praised it, calling it "dazzling in its scope and grasp of the intricacies of contemporary global politics."

I regret arriving so late to the show... This should have been required reading during my schooling. Huntington's insights are remarkably perceptive and interesting. The empirical rigor is also beyond impressive. 

The lesson here: read everything. Now, obviously, this isn't possible in the literal sense. We are mortal beings, and reading everything would take a long time, I presume. But, for students of political science, or even just individuals with a thirst for knowledge about global affairs and competing ideologies, there are certain books that are paramount. 

Huntington's book, needless to say, is one of them.