Pathways

Each month we keep track of the different paths modern life is taking and how writers are keeping up. Here are some routes we found in December on our modern life.

We need more George Orwell because we need to start thinking within and outside of the whale. The New Statesman

We need to remember Vatican II rightly if we are going to make a better modernity. Church Life Journal

After WWII there was a debate about who defines civilization. We are still having that debate today. Commonweal Magazine

Want to understand our contemporary moment? Read Augustine. Hedgehog Review

Big History might be missing too much of the little history to capture the big picture. Aeon

Everything affects everything else, and the correct questions to ask are how much? and Do I care about the magnitude of the effect? The Eighteenth Elephant

Liu Qing on China and modernity. Reading the China Dream

What is the scale of modernity? Or what is so modern about scale? The Brooklyn Rail

From our editor: only Christian tradition can account for the past in a way that makes a new future. Humanum