With the Christmas season now in full swing, there tends to be a strong focus on the joys of being young. This is notably displayed in the excitement our culture generates around shopping and gift-giving, particularly for children. Movies like Home Alone, Elf, and A Christmas Story feature the idea of youthfulness prominently in their plots, and in some way or another, cast an adult or elderly person as the antagonist. The wonder and joy of Christmas, it would seem, is reserved for a particular age. As Christians, we need to resist this inclination. One way we can preserve the
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Life in Plato’s Republic, Part 2: Building the Just City
“Don’t you know that the beginning is the most important place of every work and that this is especially so with anything young and tender? For at that stage it’s most plastic, and each thing assimilates itself to the model whose stamp anyone wishes to give it.” Plato, Republic, Book II Welcome back to my series on Plato’s Republic! As I shared in my first article, I’m producing this series for two reasons. First, I want to make Plato more accessible to everyone. Part of preserving the western intellectual tradition, or at least, not losing it, entails cracking open the
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