I reviewed Michael Brennan Dougherty’s epistolary memoir, My Father Left Me Ireland, for The American Interest.
Dougherty’s rage is directed at the eunuchizing modern mindset that sees us as most free when we can be stripped of all the ties we have to others. A father can leave his children, provided the financial pain is assuaged by child support or governmental subsidy. A citizen cannot have too great a love for their own nation, lest they imply any other is lesser. A believer cannot bring their beliefs to bear in the public square, where all visions of the good need to have free access to the marketplace of ideas, provided they are not normative visions of a common good.