Splendid Uselessness
Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life by Zena Hitz
Even before the depredations and indignities of Covid slouched into our lives, American colleges and universities were in a bad way. Leaving soaring tuition and unconscionable levels of student debt aside, progressives have felt that they've sold their souls to "neo-liberalism," peddling status and prestige, engorged with inflated rhetoric, and beholden to the bottom line, while conservatives have decried unhinged "wokeness": lefty professors and diversity bureaucrats forever sniffing out "microaggressions" and enabling "cancel culture."
Both criticisms perhaps contain elements of truth, but the canker might be deeper still: an ingrained inability, in schools and society at large, to articulate compellingly why education matters in the first place and what visions of human flourishing best nourish it. Offering considered, bracing, often passionate answers to both questions is the upshot of Zena Hitz's Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life. A committed Catholic, Hitz wears her faith lightly throughout in an effort to reach a wide audience.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Thomas Albert Howard is Professor of Humanities and holder of the Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair in Christian Ethics at Valparaiso University.
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
27.2—March/April 2014
Higher Education Should Advance the Glorious Liberty of the Sons of God by Anthony Esolen
more from the online archives
26.5—Sept/Oct 2013
The Perils of Pragmatism in Christian Attitudes Toward the Liberal Arts by Robin Phillips
37.5—Sept/Oct 2024
The Death of Conservatism & the Negative World by J. Douglas Johnson
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
