In promoting a book, one of the first things you are asked to do is to define your target audience. If you can identify the type of person who should read the book, then you can concentrate your efforts on reaching those people. In the course of promoting the book, Return to Order, I have … Read more
Frenetic Intemperance The key to understand the economic crisis is to look for its cause. Deep inside the soul of modern man we find this cause: frenetic intemperance. This vice can be defined as a restless spirit inside certain sectors of modern economy that foments a drive within men to throw off legitimate restraints and … Read more
There are those who normally play a leadership role in society by representing the community. Such representative characters are those leaders who perceive the ideals, principles, and qualities that are desired and admired by a community or nation, and translate them into concrete programs of life and culture. Their importance cannot be underestimated since they … Read more
Sometimes the simple explanations are the best. People are not free when enslaved to their vices. As Russell Kirk explains, “People are born free only in the sense that they are born to the right to seek what suits their nature.” (Russell Kirk, The American Cause, Gleaves Whitney, ed., ISI Books, Wilmington, Delaware, 2002, p. … Read more
Charleston, and the book Return to Order, seem to fit together naturally. South Carolina’s premier city represents a traditional order of things that attracts people. Its splendid townhouses and restored downtown are proof that this order is not a relic of long ago but a dynamic force linked with its past that definitely has a … Read more
We must resist the temptation of simply writing off the present system with all its problems. We must avoid the defeatist attitude of those who advocate isolating themselves from society and awaiting better days. In individualist fashion, they would take care of their own little worlds and disregard the cause of the common good. Nothing … Read more
There are those who try to ascribe to economics an exactitude that is only found in the exact or physical sciences. Such an effort is doomed to failure since it is based on human action which is so fickle and unpredictable. Economic scholar Harry Veryser notes that, “Aristotle pointed out the fatal flaw in trying … Read more
October 3, 2013: A live in-studio interview with WSCC’s Kelly Gordon who hosts the morning show on 94.3 FM Charleston’s News Talk radio. John spoke about his book and frenetic intemperance. Kelly made repeated reference to a Return to Order book signing in Summerville, just north of Charleston. Listen to interview below. Audio: WSCC_Horvat interview
There are those who affirm that only small businesses or properties are proportional to our human condition. Our ability to know things beyond the local and the small leads us to affirm that there can also be proportion in bigness. We must, of course, reject monstrous proportions. Yet it cannot be denied that nature does … Read more
In a society where honor rules, the craftsman has a special place. He is not a person who makes things mechanically without skills or thought. Rather he is an expert who develops sophisticated skills that communicate an artistic element to that which is produced. What makes a craftsman? Richard Sennett writes that the standard measure … Read more
