Prudence and politics
The City
The judgment of those responsible for the common good. It is supplied by them, never computed, and the principles it applies come from the act.
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In the register of V. I. Lenin · October 2026
What Is to Be Done?
The question is older than Lenin: the crowds asked it of John at the Jordan, and of Peter at Pentecost. Lenin answered with a vanguard and a newspaper; the cloud has perfected both. A Leninist pamphlet against the vanguard: in defence of kustarnichestvo, the little DAG in place of the scaffolding, a charitable reading of Gregory Caridi on the three senses of unity, and the plan for a common table.
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In the register of Tacitus · October 2026
The Senate at Capri
Tiberius governed the world by letter from an island for eleven years, and the senate learned to treat every letter as a command. On remote work and the empty forum: why a vote was once a walk across a floor, why courage needs a witness as fire needs air, and why a tyrant has no need of guards when every citizen has placed himself under house arrest.
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In the register of George Orwell · October 2026
Four Dreadful Words
Orwell confessed that the lower classes smell and that the flinch survived every argument. The flinch has not gone; it has moved from the nose to the ear. On the credentialed class that marches for the worker and cannot talk to the plumber, the curated résumé as the aspidistra in the window, discursive compliance in place of work, and common decency as the cure.
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In the register of Herbert McCabe · October 2026
On a People That Made Itself
“We the People … do ordain and establish.” A sentence spoken by a thing that does not yet exist until it is spoken. What a state is, the three answers to where authority comes from, the two American readings, what the jurists admit, and the narrow thing that actually follows.
Also touching The City
- Of Divers Weights filed under The Act
- Half of Nothing filed under Memory
In The Benedict Year, a homeschool curriculum that walks this map, The City is Unit 10, weeks 28–30.