The Thief
Having in recent years encountered yet another new sin, I here lay before our readers my confession, complete with dust and ashes: I have been guilty my whole life of participating in what is now called "cultural appropriation."
We had a name for this back in the dark old days: we called it education. In our unwoke depravity we thought it good to get as much as we could. In this regard I blush to think how many wicked hours I spent in my white Americanness learning Greek, playing Mozart and W. C. Handy, and reading Sung Dynasty novellas, shamelessly stealing from ancient peoples who were powerless to stop me, from black Americans, Germans, and Chinese.
With this kind of thievery afoot, it is little wonder there is so little understanding and so much ethnic ill-will in the world, for as everyone now knows, understanding is an attitude that precedes learning, not a possible result of it.
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
subscription options
Order
Print/Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Order
Online Only
Subscription
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on education from the online archives
24.5—Sept/Oct 2011
on Wondering or Wandering Through College Education by Anthony Esolen
more from the online archives
32.2—March/April 2019
Misguided Mercy & Dante's Infernal Purgation by Joshua Hren
24.6—Nov/Dec 2011
Liberty, Conscience & Autonomy
How the Culture War of the Roaring Twenties Set the Stage for Today’s Catholic & Evangelical Alliance by Barry Hankins
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
