In our socialistic society, the trend is to punish those who lead and provide for society by subjecting their efforts to excessive regulation or taxes. At the same time, our egalitarian culture tends to discourage natural leaders by presenting unrepresentative characters as role models. Finally communities are decreasingly able to identify and support natural local … Read more
Facebook is a poster child of our postmodern economy. It is one of those “fun” companies that breaks all the rules, smashes traditional hierarchies and lets its employees exercise their creativity without all the restrictions of times past. And it seems to work fabulously. With interns reportedly earning as much $74,000 a year and many … Read more
The debate over what’s really wrong with our economy seems irreconcilably divided into two camps. On one side you have those who claim everything will be all right if we could just get big government out of our economy. On the other side, the Paul Krugmans of the world are shouting all the louder: get … Read more
What is authentic progress? The book, Revolution and Counter-revolution by Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira gives some excellent insight as to what authentic progress is. He writes: “In its material aspect, genuine progress consists in the rightful use of the forces of nature according to the law of God, for the service of man. … Read more
By Ben Broussard. On Monday, September 9, 2013, members of TFP Student Action visited Penn State University in State College, PA to campaign for the new book Return to Order: From A Frenzied Economy to An Organic Christian Society – Where We’ve Been, How We Got Here, and Where We Need to Go. The campaign … Read more
According to Nicolas Carr who wrote a book on the subject, too many external distractions inhibit concentration and contemplation. Thought becomes disjointed and shallow. He reports, “A series of psychological studies over the past twenty years has revealed that after spending time in a quiet rural setting, close to nature, people exhibit greater attentiveness, stronger … Read more
People have long complained of the lack of civility in society today. It is not only because people are no longer taught manners. Rather, it is largely because people are not communicating face-to-face. They may be engaged in social media but the real human contact so essential to civility is missing. Robert Putnam, author of … Read more
Some people try to find a practical solution to problems on a purely pragmatic basis without reference to moral and intellectual ideas. Such a conception of life is in the final analysis impractical since the person must constantly be searching for solutions for each problem and thus often falls into error. It deprives a person … Read more
Some of the most beautiful things in life are not planned. Good conversations, close relationships or works of art are all examples of things that usually just happen. No strict planning is needed or even desired. Marvelous things naturally develop to the extent that the intellect is in order and the instincts and tendencies are … Read more
Josef Pieper explains how our modern world has suppressed the sense of wonder and marvelousness that should be part of our spiritual, cultural and intellectual life. He writes: “Wonder does not occur in the workaday world…and in a totalitarian world of work every form of and manner of transcendence is bound to wither, (would perish, … Read more
