Some years ago, before the word “woke” was so widely used, a student asked me in class “Are you woke?” I had never heard the expression before. Puzzled, I asked “Are you asking whether I’m awake? I try to be.” He said no, that wasn’t what he meant. “Then are you asking whether I’m enlightened?” No, it wasn’t that either.
I’ve just posted “The Key to Happiness,” Mark Bauerlein’s interview with me in March, 2022. Mark Bauerlein is host of the First Thoughts podcast at First Things.
Recently, a colleague took issue with the suggestion that Abraham Lincoln believed in natural law. My colleague’s reasoning was that it’s “hard to see how Lincoln’s pragmatic response to Dred Scott – ‘I oppose spread of slavery to the territories but will not urge abolition in the existing slave states’ -- is an example of natural law philosophy.”
A friend who thinks abortion is wrong and should be prohibited nevertheless said to me, “People aren’t entirely devoid of moral understanding. Yet everywhere we look, the penalty for committing abortion is less than the penalty for committing murder. Doesn't this show that though abortion is wrong, it’s less wrong than killing someone who is already born?”
A talkative young woman with a penetrating voice was holding court in a section of seats slightly ahead of me on the airplane, amusing her seatmates and flirting with the young man across the aisle. I was trying to read my book, but couldn’t entirely keep from overhearing.