"Without the ultrarational hopes and passions of religion no society will ever have the courage to conquer despair and attempt the impossible; for the vision of a just society is an impossible one, which can be approximated only by those who do not regard it as impossible."--Reinhold Niebuhr
A Genealogy of Our Current Insanity -- Series The rise and fall of the Christian Neoplatonic metaphysical imaginary followed by the rise and fall of the Rationalist Materialist metaphysical imaginary.
Walker Percy's Postmodern Catholicism In the present age the survivor of theory and consumption becomes a wayfarer in the desert, like St. Anthony: which is to say, open to signs
Subjects and Objects Descartes articulated the fundamental problem of modern alienation. How do we get past it?
Dying Traditions Living traditions survive in the U.S. only so long as they can resist acculturation into the larger modern American milieu. The economic pressures working to break down such subcultures are terrific.