The Internet and Your Brain

I still remember the night that convinced me I finally needed to join the twenty-first century. I had just finished a long day helping as a judge for a debate tournament. By…

Dr Christopher Veniamin on Repentance

In the video below, Dr Christopher Veniamin discusses the Orthodox view of salvation and repentance. It’s pretty basic stuff, but often we need to be reminded of the basics. (For those who…

Mr. Rogers, Count Vronsky, and Classical Education

Since writing my article ‘Fred Rogers vs. Oprah Winfrey,’ I got a chance to see Tom Hanks’ new film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. I thought it was a beautiful, moving…

Is Wikipedia an Acceptable Source for Research?

In one of the discussion boards for the Master’s in Information and Library Science that I’m taking, I was asked to comment on the following. Wikipedia is (or is not) an acceptable…

Porn and Human Trafficking in Spokane

On the surface, Spokane, Washington, seems like any other big city in the Pacific Northwest. Yet it is a city in the grip of a public health crisis. On February 23, 2019,…

Dull and Determined Effort

In my Touchstone article ‘The Cross of Least Resistance,’ I surveyed some scholarship by cultural anthropologists who have compared the different mindsets between Westerners and East Asians when it comes to success.…

Modernism, Postmodernism, and the Problem of Meta-ethics

Is it possible to infer values about what we ought to do from facts about how the world is? This question introduces a major problem within meta-ethics, which is how to philosophically…

America and the Collapse of Meta-Narratives

In the interview this summer with my twin brother Patrick, I talked about the breakdown of public discourse that inevitably follows the collapse of shared meta-narratives. In America today…the absence of shared traditions,…

Education’s Dual Purpose

From “Virtue and Classical Education: A Commencement Address to a Graduating Class.” Education should thus serve the dual purpose of cultivating dispositions attuned to what is good, true and beautiful in this…

Presentation at Gold Country Gathering 2019: George MacDonald and the Life of Gratitude

Earlier this month I had the privilege of speaking at the “Gold Country Gathering” that my parents organized for fans of George MacDonald. I spoke about human flourishing, George MacDonald, and my…

Everything Plato!

Plato wasn’t just a great metaphysician, he was also one of the greatest psychologists ever to have lived. In this edition of our podcast, Dr. Phillip Cary sheds light on Plato’s psychology.…

Virtue and Attitude

In my article ‘Virtue and Classical Education‘, I contrast modern and ancient understandings of virtue. In the historic understanding, virtue includes actions but is rooted in attitude. And while attitude includes emotion, it…



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