What is it that holds our country together today? Perhaps nothing so much as lies, which, in some instances, are nonetheless effective because they are known to be lies. Something remarkable—or perhaps all too predictable, in our cynical time—happened here in the City of Brotherly Love on Feb. ...

“It’s one thing to deplore eugenics on ideological, political, moral grounds,” Richard Dawkins tweeted on Sunday. “It’s quite another to conclude that it wouldn’t work in practice. Of course it would. It works for cows, horses, pigs, dogs & roses. Why on earth wouldn’t it work for ...

“The new form of unfairness,” says Charles Murray in his new book, “is that talent is largely a matter of luck, and the few who are so unusually talented that they rise to the top are the beneficiaries of luck in the genetic lottery.” In his subtle review of Human Diversity: The Biology of ...

Amid the decline of religion and of traditional sources of value generally, the question arises as to what people shall live for. Judging by their reactions to events, the paltry answer, for many on the left, is sheer narcissism. From this perspective, the sacrosanct self, with its precious ...

A little while back, a friend of mine had a poem accepted by The Paris Review, a magazine that, though in steep decline since it became politically correct, remains a big deal in the world of letters. The poem was never published, though, because after googling the poet, the editor found that ...

“To be great is to be misunderstood.” —Emerson Alfred Lubrano, in an article published in The Philadelphia Inquirer on Sept. 14, 2017, noted that in 2016, Philadelphia retained its unenviable designation as the poorest of the 10 most populous cities in America, recording the highest rate of ...

“[I]f thou live, remember’d not to be, Die single, and thine image dies with thee.” —Shakespeare On Wednesday, the liberal writer Caitlin Flanagan tweeted something about the previous night’s Democratic debate that should be of immense interest to social conservatives. “Was it just ...

“If I’ve a taste, it’s not alone.” —Rimbaud According to that hateful elitist Aristotle, democracy is the worst form of government because, among other things, it is averse to meritocracy. It is only workable in small communities of like-minded citizens. And, as if the idea of ...

“[O]nly God, my dear, Could love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.” —Yeats On television, in the movies, and, most of all, on that vast, unpredictable, freewheeling medium known as the internet, our culture is absolutely saturated with sex—a reality that has long troubled ...

“It is old custom that enables people to live together peaceably; the destroyers of custom demolish more than they know or desire.” —Russell Kirk On Dec. 6, four Republican congressmen sent a letter to U.S. attorney general William Barr entreating the Department of Justice to enforce ...