“At a certain point in American life, the young ceased to be viewed as a transient class and youth as a phase of life through which everyone soon passed. Instead, youthfulness was vaunted and carried a special moral status. Adolescence triumphed, becoming a permanent condition.” So writes Joseph Epstein in a witty and now-classic article that is even timelier … [Read more...] about The Perpetual Adolescent
Education and Child Rearing
Blocking Puberty in Transgendered Children Unethical
Postmodern theory propounds that reality is a social construct, and thus that we are men or women according not to our bodies but our beliefs. Worse yet, many think that reality sometimes needs more than a little coercion to conform to the social construction. It is becoming increasingly common for the bodies of children to be drugged and mutilated to force them to adapt to the … [Read more...] about Blocking Puberty in Transgendered Children Unethical
Hidden Fire: Orthodox Perspectives on Yoga
The practice of yoga is becoming normalized in our society as a religiously-neutral, “holistic” exercise program that will promote mental and physical health. But this article, written by an Orthodox author who had once pursued yogic practices extensively in India, shows how yoga is inseparable not only from Hindu and Buddhist doctrines, but from dark and demonic … [Read more...] about Hidden Fire: Orthodox Perspectives on Yoga
‘The Great Scattering’: How Identity Panic Took Root in the Void Once Occupied by Family Life
In a recent collection of writings on “Identity and Identification,” the editors state (without irony) that “we are insecure about the nature and significance of our biological, socio-political, national, professional, religious and sexual identities; but we are also more generally unsure about which category of distinction is most important.”1 Indeed, … [Read more...] about ‘The Great Scattering’: How Identity Panic Took Root in the Void Once Occupied by Family Life
The Virtue of Irrelevance: An Essay on Education
In a world where it is becoming increasingly unwise to entrust the education of our children to teachers who promote trendy, “relevant” curricula, the question arises “What, then, should we teach them?” British philosopher and public intellectual St Roger Scruton argues eloquently that the supposedly “irrelevant” traditional curriculum of … [Read more...] about The Virtue of Irrelevance: An Essay on Education