R.J. Snell is director of academic affairs at the Witherspoon Institute, editor-in-chief of Public Discourse, and currently a visiting instructor in the department of politics at Princeton University.
Posts by R.J. Snell
May 05, 2026
Roger Scruton often wrote of
oikophobia, the phenomenon, so prevalent in the modern West, of distrusting one’s own home, society, and cultural inheritance. The culture of repudiation is one-directional, however, valorizing “the other” at the expense of ourselves—
we can do no right while
they can do no wrong.
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March 25, 2026
It’s difficult to avoid terms such as “legendary” and “distinguished” when referring to Harvey Mansfield’s long career at Harvard University. Of course, his reputation is based on more than his famous resistance to grade inflation or his barbed criticisms of Harvard.
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August 26, 2025
It was once considered obvious, at least to those in the know, that religion and other superstitions would fade as science made God unnecessary, implausible, and eventually ridiculous. Primitive humans saw gods lurking everywhere because of their ignorance of natural causes, perhaps, and the need for God to fill in the “gaps” of our explanations would in principle disappear.
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July 16, 2025
Long known and respected for his scholarship on liberalism, regime types, and the nation, Pierre Manent has also contributed to discussions on natural law, prudence, and agency in the face of contemporary confusions about meaning and the human good.
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May 10, 2024
Depending on your view, free speech in the United States is either beleaguered and endangered or far too expansive, even out of control. Ours is a society that censors books, forbids the honest teaching of unpalatable historical truths, cancels speakers, fires tenured professors for ordinary academic work, and forbids prayers at public school graduation ceremonies.
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December 21, 2023
Harvey Mansfield recently retired from his position at Harvard University after a long and storied career. He’s almost an institution himself, well-known for hard grading, demanding teaching, a book on manliness long after such things were permissible, and superb translations of Tocqueville and Machiavelli.
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October 10, 2023
In our moment, the nature and meaning of conservatism is disputed, sometimes hotly, and it’s unsurprising to observe participants turn to history for wisdom or support. Either in praise or vilification, current schools frequently mention John Courtney Murray, Russell Kirk, Frank Meyer, Irving Kristol, and William F.
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