I enjoy writing blog entries, I really do. 

And yet at times I reflect and notice a bit of repetition in the work, a nagging and perhaps obsessive idea. A fixation. 

Much of what I write here seems to be a variation on a single theme: conservative thought is a powerfully rich tradition whose contemporary exemplars have strayed from some important foundations. The bonds of community, for example, above and beyond the individual. The natural and organic order, the importance of history and tradition. An engaged critique of modernity rather than an embrace of the forces of hypermodern capitalism.

Here's more variation on that theme, in the form of a powerful and critical essay in the weekend New York Times (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/rich-people-just-care-l…). After reading this, it seems to me that the Church -- and especially the so-called conservative "traditionalist" wing in the US -- should be addressing not only the growth of inequality and the concomitant stagnation of social mobility, but the growing sense of indifference and even hostility towards the poor. What I see, though, is something like the opposite: the economics of Paul Ryan, the libertarian theology of Robert Sirico.

Are these views representative?  

Robert Geroux is a political theorist.

Also by this author
© 2024 Commonweal Magazine. All rights reserved. Design by Point Five. Site by Deck Fifty.