Misappropriating the Mea Culpa

You might be surprised to hear how much medieval penitents and modern progressives have in common.
 
According to the “Notes and Comments” section of The New Criterion, the grim performance of self-flagellation is sweeping through elite institutions, as they lament their entrenched racism and insufficient commitment to social justice.
 
For example, a student-run ballet program at Princeton vows to “decolonize the practice of ballet,” that “imperialist, colonialist, and white supremacist art form” . . . 
 
 . . . while museum curators promise “ethical cataloguing work” that will stamp out any residual hurtfulness in language or representation. 
 
You need to read this fascinating theory about the relationship between repentance in the classical sense, and the new, dehumanizing form the left uses today.
 

Cancel Culture Across the Atlantic

Groupthink leads to silly rituals of penance . . . 

It also leads to another curiosoity—siloing of people and opinions into the acceptables and the undesirables.
 
Writing in Law & Liberty, Helen Dale examines this phenomenon through British popular historian Neil Oliver.

Never heard of him? We're not surprised. 

Oliver has run afoul of Britain’s ruling classes for speaking out against policy and "prestige opinions" on things like COVID.
 
Not canceled, exactly . . . but Britain’s top pop historian has been quietly shunted off the BBC and his books are no longer blurbed.

But Oliver might be an example of a Brit who can weather the ritual sacrifices of the left—that alone makes him worth learning more about.
 
Find out why Dale insists you should read his book, The Story of the World in 100 Moments. And take note of the anecdote about the Queen Mother and the rolls of toilet paper—it's shockingly relevant!
 

Why You Need Poetry

ISI's Second Annual Homecoming Weekend: May 13-14, Wilmington, Delaware

Highlights of Homecoming Weekend include:

• A Friday night dinner at Wilmington’s historic Hotel du Pont honoring the winner of ISI’s 2022 Conservative Book of the Year award, Victor Davis Hanson, for his book The Dying Citizen
   
• Additional Saturday Reunion Luncheons for Graduate Fellows; Honors Scholars and Society Leaders; and Collegiate Network Editors, Interns, and Fellows past and present to reconnect with their ISI friends
   
• Our ISI reunion conference Saturday afternoon featuring panels on the purpose of the liberal arts and the future of higher ed
   
• Saturday evening reception featuring food, live music, and dancing on ISI’s campus

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