Freedom
Ezra Klein’s NYT column turns politics into dystopian theater. Mafias, golden offices, alarms of “authoritarianism” abound — yet without definition. As MacIntyre foresaw, words survive as fragments, stripped of meaning, leaving rhetoric where judgment should be.
Breaking with Marx
From Leo XIII to John Paul II, the Church has stood with the poor—yet never by confusing justice with class struggle or dignity with enforced equality. Its vision affirms persons, not classes: for the poor, yes; for Marx, no.
Freedom
Augustine’s “city of pilgrims” and Oakeshott’s “resident strangers” remind us: democracy is no utopia, but a fragile order of wayfarers. Its strength lies not in perfection, but in patience, compromise, and trust.
Moral Courage
The Left’s pursuit of justice is noble—but without humility, it curdles into dogma. Democracy rests on fallibility and compromise. To recover humility is not weakness but the renewal of pluralism itself.
Conscience
Amid ruins and censors, Rublev painted communion. Tarkovsky filmed his silence. Across centuries, both remind us: beauty does not erase suffering, but transfigures it—conscience’s last word against power.
Conscience
Friendship severed over politics is not just private pain but civic fragility. When ties yield to ideology, plurality—the essence of democracy—erodes. To stay friends across difference is not weakness but the hardest defense of freedom.
Foreign Affairs
The UN is no world government—and that is its virtue. Its inertia slows war, its discord blocks monopoly, and its stage lets rivals quarrel without empire. Flawed and fragile, it preserves what liberty most requires: prudence, time, and knowledge.
Conscience
◳ In an age of extremes, Camus’s philosophy of revolt with restraint challenges both nihilism and authoritarianism, reminding us that true rebellion affirms dignity without abandoning conscience. We live in an age where moderation is mocked. Every debate is framed as an existential showdown, every election as a battle between
Foreign Affairs
◳ The UN’s future will not be decided by new mandates or bigger budgets, but by whether it can still be trusted to know the world better than anyone else. As the United Nations turns 80, the familiar critiques resurface. The Security Council is paralyzed by vetoes; peacekeeping is costly
When every rival is branded a tyrant, language corrodes, facts blur, and democracy weakens. Hyperbole thrills the faithful but dulls vigilance. Proportion, not catastrophe-speak, is the true defense of freedom.
Music
Chopin called it żal—a sorrow that smiles through tears. From mazurkas to Paderewski’s anthems, Polish music became a form of sovereignty: beauty transfigured by suffering, melody as the nation’s survival.
Faith and Reason
“Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. Religion is much more necessary in the republic which they set forth in glowing colors than in the monarchy which they attack; and it is more needed in democratic republics than in any others” (Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1831). The