Author Archives: theamericanplutarch

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About theamericanplutarch

Writer, thinker, historian.

Is Science Inherently an Act of Piety?

During the past century science has become so focused on the material and the secular as to deny what was one of the essential characteristics of Western scientists going back three millennia: piety. Ancient Greek scientists perceived religion and science … Continue reading

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The Liberal Arts: The Continuing Foundation for Learning in Our Society by means of the Trivium and Quadrivium

The Liberal Arts are based in the historical trivium and quadrivium. The Trivium is Latin, literally “a place where three roads meet”. Quadrivium is Latin for where four roads meet. The Liberal Arts of today derive from the meeting of … Continue reading

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The Small Liberal Arts College in Crisis: Is there a Solution?

I teach at a small parochial liberal arts college in Oklahoma. Like other such colleges, parochial and secular, this college, Bacone College, is continually in crisis: financial crisis, enrollment crisis, staffing crisis, management crisis. There are a host of reasons … Continue reading

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The Return to McCarthyism

Almost seventy years ago, an obscure senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, used fear as a means to initiate widespread panic and intimidate the innocent. Fear can do this to people. Fear makes the rational become irrational, the innocent become guilty, … Continue reading

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Is the Message Still Relevant?

For 2000 years, since Jesus commanded his disciples to go spread the good news to all nations, Christian messengers, or missionaries, have traveled throughout the world spreading the message of hope and redemption. There are few people on the Earth … Continue reading

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All Things are Possible

Recent conflict and protests in America, about statues and monuments recalling troubling events in the past, seem to be dividing a country that clearly needs uniting. Those who focus on division rather than unity seem to think that all things … Continue reading

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Historical Sites along the Maine Coast: Kittery to York

Kittery, Maine, situated on the northern shores of the Piscataqua River, was a home to seamen and fishermen. Most such men of the salt sea were not well known in their own time and forgotten today. An exception was Lieutenant … Continue reading

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The Philosophy of Veganism

I have been vegan. Such a statement might immediately arouse suspicions: “Why would a person not eat fast food, hamburgers, chicken nuggets, steak, fish? Isn’t such food what a large part of the American economy is based on? How can … Continue reading

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Independence: Disorder in a Democracy

In today’s day, we are confronted with disorder, almost chaos and anarchy at times. How do we bring order out of a disorderly situation? The concluding years of the American Revolution in the 1780s provides us with an example. The … Continue reading

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Animals and Time

Do animals have an experience of time similar to humans? I believe so. I propose that each life, whether human or animal, experiences time and the passage of time, hence history, individually, uniquely. It is difficult for a human to … Continue reading

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