Friday Links, September 29, 2017

I'm a sucker for all things Evelyn Waugh, and Fr. Mankowski's "Waugh on the Merits" in First Things does not disappoint. "Waugh does not deny that the Catholic Church has aesthetic splendors to offer; what he denies is that such splendors provide a reliable basis for accepting the Church’s claims as true. The feelings such splendors produce are sporadic and transitory, and those who wallow most deeply in them will feel cheated and distraught on the day their magic fails."

A blast from the dystopian past: Aldous Huxley has some choice words for George Orwell's vision of the future. "Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World."

One of Alexander the Great's lost cities has been discovered in Iraq. "Qalatga Darband, a fortified settlement in northern Iraq with a thriving wine trade, went unrecorded by history until its remains were discovered by archaeologists at the British Museum with the aid of drones."