The American Dream carves out a very narrow path to well-being. It sets expectations and shapes behaviors in ways that convince people to chase after things they might not need or want, while overlooking the costs of this pursuit.
Unstupiding Ourselves: The Truth About the High Calling of a Classical Christian Education
In 2022, esteemed Psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, made the case that a particular change in the way social media worked made the past 10 years of American life uniquely stupid. Drawing from the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, Haidt accurately describes a nation that is suddenly disoriented and unable to speak the same language […]
Clues That We’ve Been Schooled
For more than a century now, Americans have been unwittingly shaped by the American public education system. But wait, you might be saying! We’re a homeschooling family. Our children have never been in a public school. How is it possible we have been shaped by a system in which we have never participated? That’s a […]
What Grading Trends Reveal About Failing State of Modern Education
The A-F grading scale has been the most commonly used system for teachers for more than 100 years. It came into widespread use because it was considered a “scientific” approach to grading. In an article written for the Washington Post in 2003, Stuart Rojstaczer, a Duke University professor, provided a distressing report which showed that up […]
The Price of Leisure
In Zena Hitz’s essay, “What is Time For?,” she makes the case that leisure requires something of us. In a Substack post last year, where I reflected on Josef Pieper’s Only the Lover Sings, I treated the idea of leisure and the important role it plays in our lives—it is that for which we do […]
The American Dream: A Commonplace Idea
The American dream that has lured tens of millions of all nations to our shores in the past century has not been a dream of merely material plenty, though that has doubtless counted heavily. It has been much more than that. It has been a dream of being able to grow to fullest development as […]
G. K. Chesterton on Artificial Intelligence
G. K. Chesterton, a prominent figure in Christian humanism and a profound thinker of the early 20th century, was known for his insightful observations on various aspects of human existence. While Chesterton did not directly comment on artificial intelligence, his philosophical and theological perspectives offer valuable insights into what he might say about AI if […]
Is Bitcoin Evil?
Bitcoin will ultimately fail for the same reason our paper money is currently failing. Both are a pseudo-currency and neither are founded on work—which is what made the gold standard a viable economic foundation. The US dollar is little more than free-floating, fiat money with a strong proclivity toward inflation. It’s been in that condition […]
Preliminary Thoughts on School Choice
What I have to say here are by no means my final thoughts on the subject of school choice initiatives. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure what I’m sharing here could even be considered “complete thoughts” because they’re still brewing. Perhaps, you can just think of this post as being akin to the […]
Happy New Year 2024
The New Year excites the emotions of most people, but for different and various reasons. For many, it’s the excitement of the New Year’s party. One poll conducted back in 2019, surveying more than 2000 participants, concluded average working Americans between ages 23-38 were willing to spend more than $220 for an evening of partying […]