Keeping with the consumerism theme (sort of) here’s an interesting article on the history of the “straight edge” movement (i.e. punks who eschew drinking, drugs, smoking, casual sex, and often meat). Me, I just really liked the album “12” by Minor Threat.

[L]ove is consent to the fact that there is authentic otherness. We all start with needs, and with dependence on others to meet them. As we grow up, self-consciousness brings the tendency to make ourselves the centre, and with it the commonsense understanding that the very needs of survival depend on our own efforts. These…

The post below on consumerism generated some good comments; thought I’d do a bit of follow up. I read the William Cavanaugh article from Sojourners and he made what I thought were some very good points. Cavanaugh emphasizes that the problem with consumerism is not just about “having more stuff” but also that it tends…

I’ve always been a bit puzzled by folks who see the USA as the ne plus ultra of evil in the world, and yet get all dewey-eyed about the prospects of the UN bringing peace and harmony to our benighted globe. To wit. Question: has the UN ever prevented a war from happening that its…

In the spirit of Russell Arben Fox‘s post from the other day, here are a couple of items of interest. “A Nation Divided: or, Ass Cleavage” from the hip new lefty mag n+1 argues that modesty in dress is something the left can get behind (no pun intended). This post from the New Donkey blog…

Sojourners has just posted a handful of articles on the topics of consumerism and “the simple life.” One is by big time Radical Orthodoxy guy William Cavanaugh, which looks particularly interesting. A confession: it’s really easy for me to condemn consumerism in the abstract, but rejecting it in practice not so much. One way I…

One persistent criticism of John Paul II has been that the Vatican’s opposition to artificial means of birth control, specifically condoms, has exacerbated the African AIDS epidemic. For instance, in today’s Inquirer we get this op-ed, which reads, in part: John Paul II mesmerized those who saw him. He spoke forcefully for the dignity of…

There’s been a spate of articles in the press since John Paul’s death of the form “Conservatives say they like and admire the pope, but look they disagree with him on issue x, y, or z” (For examples see here and here. Maybe there have been pieces where conservatives made a similar charge against liberals,…

Russell Arben Fox has a fairly lengthy (but well worth reading) post on “John Paul II, Authority, and the Left.” It all ties in (but in a smart and nuanced way) to all the post-election talk about whether, and how, the Left (broadly speaking) does or doesn’t get the “moral values” issue. Russell raises a…

Philosopher Merold Westphal has a great essay on prayer in the newest Christian Century: Praise presupposes, I believe, a prior kenotic gesture, an inner posture from which all five elements of prayer most properly emerge. It is the willing decentering of the self. Ironically enough, it is utterly fundamental to what is increasingly called centering…