What is a society?
On Facebook my friend Scott Pryor rightly notes that if Dr. Miller failed to define ‘justice’ in his essay at Providence, my post suffers from the lack of a definition of “society.” So here is a stab at answering that question.
Impartiality is Not Neutrality
Friend of Mere O Paul D. Miller has responded to Jonathan Leeman’s recent Providence essay with a post of his own. This paragraph in particular is what I want to focus on because it highlights one of the most important points...
Did Liberalism Solve Pluralism?
One of the persistent framings of the debate about liberalism works by asserting that liberalism has figured out how to help people live together in the midst of deep differences. Thus those who reject liberalism are invoking dangerous demons from...
The Post-Liberal State and the (Highly Technical) Goods of Modernity
Several years ago my dad suffered a traumatic brain injury. To put it as plainly as I can: He is alive today because he had major brain surgery followed by a three-week long nap in the ICU that cost someone...
When the News Isn’t News: On Deconversion Narratives
Let’s just say a few things without naming any particular people or referring to specific events. First, there is a well-defined social script for someone who grew up in fundamentalist Christianity to become progressive later in life. This shift toward...
Augustinianism and Audience in “In Search of the Common Good”
Brad East has what is perhaps my favorite response to the book so far, not least because it is one of the more critical responses, for which I am thankful. You can read the whole thing over at Resident Theologian.
Liturgical Jigs and Millennial Burnout
In his book The World Beyond Your Head Matthew Crawford uses the idea of a jig to explain how a carpenter might go about accomplishing a task more quickly and efficiently. Jigs are a kind of hack, a method for doing...
In Search of the Common Good Book Launch
It’s launch day for In Search of the Common Good. You can read the book’s endorsements and purchase a copy direct from the publisher, InterVarsity Press, using the book’s page on their website. You can also buy it on Amazon.
Is all human community parasitic?
That is the claim made by Dan Hugger in a recent post at the Acton Institute. Hugger, picking up on the French-Ahmari debate, argued that my framing of the debate—that liberalism ultimately fails because it both relies on other social...
Mere O News (and a Book Perk!)
I just posted this on the Patreon page for Mere O and wanted to cross-post here to make sure everyone saw it. Hey all, I have a few news items to share with y’all: First: My book will be out...