News from the Front Porch Republic
Greetings from the Porch,
There's a lot happening on the porch these days: we have a new FPR podcast (details below), we published the top three essays we received in our first student essay contest, and we're two months out from what is shaping up to be a great conference in Waco, TX.
And for those who are interested in coming by Grove City College this October to hear Paul Kingsnorth on his book tour, the event registration page is now up.
- In this week's Water Dipper, I recommend essays about Don't Die, bad neighbors, and unions.
- Elizabeth Stice describes what is becoming an encouraging trend in her classes: "Every single person who was present participated verbally, every single class session. It was a special, shared endeavor, and it felt like catching lightning in a bottle... This past spring semester, another class decided to do a semester-long participation streak, and they also succeeded. Have we started a lightning bottling facility?"
- Brandon McNeice explains how school uniforms foster a healthy culture at his school: "At our school, each morning begins with students arriving in uniform—shirts buttoned, collars straightened, shoes worn with care—ready to join a community already in motion. For many of our students, that shirt was donated. The collar might be frayed. But there is a quiet dignity in the gesture and a subtle promise: here, we will dress not to compete but to belong."
- Ada Brown scores both her typewriter and her school-issued Chromebook according to Wendell Berry's nine rules for technological innovation: "The typewriter scores, on the Wendell Berry scale, a 7/9. Its only losses are that it isn’t solar powered, and it is excessively large. My favorite point on the scale is, 'It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.' This point is the one in which my typewriter is exceptional—not only has it not disrupted anything, it has brought me closer to my grandmother, my great-grandmother, my cousins, and my own soul."
- Kinley Bowers defends her decision to study literature: "Berry argues that language and literature cannot be predicted because they 'are always about something else.' Whether because of indecision or conflicting interests, I chose to study English partially because it allowed me to avoid the choice of a major. The study of literature opens avenues of learning into everything. Conversely, when we lose our ability to handle words, we lose our connections to history, philosophy, political science, geography, culinary arts, conservation, biology, and any other meaningful study."
- Annabelle Edamala refuses to fool herself into thinking that some technology will make human endeavors easy: "In Mr. Berry’s terms, the definition of a self-inflicted fool appears to be this: he is someone who believes that the new machine has the power to make that aspect of the human experience which we call writing easier and better. If the human experience maintains any kind of continuity, I doubt any tool could do this. One lurking danger of playing the fool is that for a long time this delusion will be sufficient to keep supercharging itself."
- Michial Farmer launches a new FPR podcast: A Symposium of Popular Songs. Look for new episodes to release each Monday. The first one listens to songs (and weaves in poems and other reflections) responding to middle age. If you have a smartphone, you can download the Mixcloud app (Apple; Android) and get new episodes that way.
A friend recommended Ronald C. White, Jr.’s book Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural, and it is indeed a good book. White does a fine job illuminating the religious, literary, cultural, and political contexts of Lincoln’s speech, and the effect is to set off more sharply its rhetorical brilliance and its hard-won wisdom:
The spirit of Lincoln’s words inspires awe. His words prove lasting because he embodied what he spoke. He acted throughout his presidency “with malice toward none; with charity toward all.” Still, awe is not to be confused with sentimentality.
Neither vindication nor triumphalism is present in the Second Inaugural. At the bedrock is Lincoln’s humility. He included himself as one who “looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding.” As Lincoln told Thurlow Weed on March 15, “Whatever of humiliation there is in it, falls most directly on myself.” We might wish that Lincoln had expanded upon this reflection, but surely he meant that he did not claim for himself moral high ground in the nation’s struggle with the immorality of slavery.
Thanks for spending some time with us on the Porch,
Jeff Bilbro