Subsidiarity and Repair

Too many essays about [name your American institution (in this essay, it was scouting)] end with the same refrain: It isn’t what it used to be, so I’m leaving. Sometimes, that’s the right decision. Institutions can lose their way, and there are moments when fidelity to conscience requires us to walk away. But increasingly I wonder whether our first instinct has become departure rather than stewardship. Progressives are often criticized for believing institutions can simply be rebuilt from scratch. Yet conservatives sometimes make the opposite mistake: assuming that once an institution has changed, it is beyond salvaging. Both forget that institutions become what people make of them. Stated simply, institutions endure only when people remain long enough to preserve what is good and patiently reform what is not.

Can Scouting Still Raise Boys?, LuElla D’Amico, The Dispatch, July 6, 2026

Two from Cataggio

1. ... imagining an idealized America that never actually existed and then getting mad that modern America doesn’t look more like it is basically Populism 101.
2. Postliberalism’s core conviction is that any policy problem can be solved with sufficient ruthlessness.

Archie through the grass

Finished reading

Nonesuch by Francis Spufford. A ripping plot, fascinating setting (London during the Blitz), spunky (to say the least) protagonist, and real themes about important things. I enjoyed it enormously.

from Colossal

Animals and Ornament Emerge from Felted Wool in Holly Guertin’s Textiles

No voice, but I removed my shoes just in case

RIP, Robert Coles

Here’s a sweet remembrance of Robert Coles, one of America’s great champions of children, written by one of my favorite photographers, Alex Harris. A Wikipedia article about Coles is here.

King Harvest

Vacation

Finished reading…

A Month in the Country, by J.L. Carr.

Wonderful, wistful, lovely book. As economical as a poem.

“For goodness’ sake,” he said irritably, “I don’t mean that and you know I don’t, you cagey devil. I mean here, Oxgodby, the friends you’ve made, this marvelous summer, the splendid job you’ve done. I mean the lot. You can only have this piece of cake once, you can’t keep on munching away at it. Sad, but there it is!”