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Molly Brigid McGrath Subscribe

Molly Brigid McGrath is associate professor of philosophy at Assumption College.

January 11, 2019|Coen Brothers, Emily Dickinson, Jack London, Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, a Frontier Anthology

by Molly Brigid McGrath|7 Comments

Alex Halpern and James Franco in "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" (image: alamy.com)
Shall we look upon this brutal Coen Brothers movie and despair?

July 25, 2018|Michael Walsh, The Devil’s Pleasure Palace, The Fiery Angel

Michael Walsh’s Anti-Satanic Verses

by Molly Brigid McGrath|4 Comments

Saint James battles the sorcery of Hermogenes, an emissary of the Devil. Colorized version of a 1565 engraving by Pieter van der Heyden, school of Bruegel the Elder (alamy.com).
A fiery cultural critique that gives off far more heat than light.

February 9, 2018|American Sign Language, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Guillermo del Toro, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Shape of Water

The Shape of Water: Non-Potable

by Molly Brigid McGrath|5 Comments

Don’t fall for the Oscar-winning romance starring a sublinguistic amphibious hunk.

January 26, 2018|9/11, Godless, Mormonism, The Night of the Hunter, Western Civilization

Netflix Defends the West(ern)

by Molly Brigid McGrath|4 Comments

Amid all the celebration of Godless as a “feminist Western,” commenters have ignored its post-September 11, pro-Western theme.

October 27, 2017|Alexis de Tocqueville, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Hamlet, Polonius, The Incredibles

Don’t Be True to Yourself

by Molly Brigid McGrath|21 Comments

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Are you being true to yourself? Should you? Better question: What in the world is a true self, anyway?

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June 16, 2017|Book of Genesis, Camille Paglia, Feminism, William Marston, Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman: A Movie About Men

by Molly Brigid McGrath|12 Comments

wonder woman

Some of my best friends are men, so no offense. But Wonder Woman has me asking, what’s the point? What good are they?

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March 31, 2017|agape, Beauty and the Beast, Disney Movies, Groundhog Day, Stockholm Syndrome

Disney’s Cheap Grace

by Molly Brigid McGrath|9 Comments

 To present romance as possessing godlike, transfigurative powers is not only stupid but dangerous.

February 24, 2017|20th Century Women, Annette Bening, Feminism, Mike Mills, Sisterhood Is Powerful

A Musth See

by Molly Brigid McGrath|2 Comments

20th-century-women-mike-mills-1000x520-1

It’s probably a drag being a liberal, always boycotting things. A Progressive friend who was surprised by my politics once asked me how I could like Radiohead so much, considering its front man Thom Yorke is such a leftist. It seemed a logical error (the “moralistic boycotter’s fallacy”?). I don’t judge songs by the artist’s favorite color, either. The fact is, conservatives can’t afford to discriminate merely to maintain moral cleanliness. I wonder whose music my friend might allow me to enjoy. Kid Rock? (Blah.) Rush? (Eye roll.)

And anyway, even if an artist’s politics do affect his art, what a spiritual poverty to entertain, or be entertained by, only what confirms one’s convictions! As a psychological fact, for many the private determines the political; must we also allow the partisan to constrict the personal?

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January 13, 2017|As You Like It, Damien Chazelle, La La Land

So-So City

by Molly Brigid McGrath|1 Comment

Did you ever catch yourself dreaming, adrift in la-la land—only to wake up to your own, personal so-so city? A consoling (but sophistic) thought: The number of possible worlds is infinite, so there’s some possible You out there for whom your daydreamt world is actual. Isn’t it nice to know a parallel possible You gets to really enjoy it? You could equally conjure up a possible world that is worse—and in that case, so much the better for actual You.

Damien Chazelle’s La La Land shows how imagining possible worlds uplifts, and disappoints, human life. Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and Mia (Emma Stone) fall in love, but ultimately the film is more about human la-la lands, symbolized by the Los Angeles in which Seb and Mia are trying to make it—he as a nostalgic jazz pianist bent on opening his own club, and she as a barista/actress infatuated with images of old Hollywood.

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December 30, 2016|Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea, Westworld

Manchester By the Sea: Dark, Beautiful, and Real

by Molly Brigid McGrath|1 Comment

Every person undergoes traumatic experiences. Their quantity and quality vary, but once suffered, these experiences are incorporated into the person, usually invisibly to the rest of us. When they are not hidden enough, we may wish a person would just get over it already. Yet we marvel, when a person calmly reveals some past trauma, at the human ability seemingly to tuck such things away.

Kenneth Lonergan’s magnificent film Manchester by the Sea—poignant, funny, tough—portrays the human limits of this ability.

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Book Reviews

A Compelling and Compassionate Book about Epilepsy

by Theodore Dalrymple

Our knowledge of the human brain is limited, but neuroscientist Suzanne O’Sullivan’s observation of her patients yields astute insights.

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Andrew Roberts Takes the Measure of the “Populist” Aristocrat, Churchill

by Joao Carlos Espada

Yes, there is something new to be learned about Winston Churchill, and it's in the new 1,105-page biography by Andrew Roberts.

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Liberty Classics

Paul Heyne and the Trouble with Economists

by Nikolai G. Wenzel

Economics is often a morality-free zone, and Paul Heyne shows why this is a mistake.

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Bringing Natural Law to the Nations

by Samuel Gregg

If sovereign states ordered their domestic affairs in accordance with principles of natural law, the international sphere would benefit greatly.

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Podcasts

Born-Again Paganism: A Conversation with Steven Smith

A discussion with Steven D. Smith

Steven Smith talks with Richard Reinsch about his provocative thesis that a modern form of paganism is becoming public orthodoxy.

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"Slouching Towards Mar-a-Lago:" A Conversation with Andrew Bacevich

A discussion with Andrew J. Bacevich

Andrew Bacevich discusses his new book Twilight of the American Century

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Bureaucracy, Regulation, and the Unmanly Contempt for the Constitution

A discussion with John Marini

John Marini unmasks the century-long effort to undermine the Constitution's distribution of power.

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Beautiful Losers in American Politics: A Conversation with Nicole Mellow

A discussion with Nicole Mellow

Nicole Mellow on the beautiful losers in American politics who have redefined the country.

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Recent Posts

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    We are fast abandoning the fundamental jurisprudence of our law that legislatures make general rules and courts apply them to specific circumstances.
    by Thomas Ascik

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    A good constitution thus can cabin the damage that popular movements may do, while still permitting them to shake up complacent elites.
    by John O. McGinnis

  • Hell Is Truth Realized Too Late: Russia and the Legacy of World War I

    Had the costs of war and revolution been understood, Russia might have avoided much of what it suffered over the 20th century.
    by William Anthony Hay

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    Perhaps we should be with the socialists on this one: NYC did not lose much in net by Amazon’s pullout.
    by James R. Rogers

  • A Corrupt Republic? Hamilton, Madison, and the Rise of Oligarchy

    Jay Cost asks his readers to reconsider the ways that corruption all too easily flows from the federal government, in every era.
    by Tony Williams

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