A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘you are mad; you are not like us.’ –St. Antony of the Desert
The Ridiculous Man is not hard to miss, unmoved by the world he was created in, but not for. He stands for tradition in a world obsessed with progress, for obligation in a world characterized by seemingly infinite freedom of choice, and for faith in a world skeptical of even the most fundamental truths of humanity. In many ways, The Ridiculous Man is the enemy of the modern world. To use the words of William F. Buckley Jr., he is the “non-licensed nonconformist”—the one who resists a society that is both ferociously committed to the uniqueness of the individual, and drearily uniform in its dogmatic belief in objectiveless progress.
Following the example of its eponymous novel, The Ridiculous Man will serve to promote the peculiar faith and culture that created two thousand years of saints who shaped and blessed the world once called Christendom. In this journal, a combination of both lay and religious authors will offer commentary and musings on all facets of Catholicism and culture, including: theology, poetry, music, film, art, family, and law. The Ridiculous Man will present both an analysis of the world as it is and hope for the world to come.
In recent years, the internet has undeniably been awash with Catholics of every persuasion creating their own blogs and podcasts, making the creation of another appear superfluous at best and ridiculous at worst. If it is, The Ridiculous Man’s founders are consoled by the fact that their publication will not flinch at the onslaught of ever-evolving ideologies grounded in little more than the current date and the vaguest notions of kindness toward humanity in the abstract. The Ridiculous Man will be satisfied positioning itself as a rock—perhaps one of many rocks—upon which the waves of relativism will break.
The Ridiculous Man plants its feet firmly in the dogmas of the Catholic Church, patriotic devotion to local communities, and the belief that a man is not defined by his freedoms, but by his obligations. To this end, the journal will unabashedly promote the One True Faith and the subordination of cultural and political interests to the Faith. It will promote localism in the political and economic sphere, emphasizing the man’s responsibilities in political society, not merely the rights he is entitled to retain.
With God’s grace, The Ridiculous Man, with its multifarious musings and analysis, will help and encourage men and women of faith. The authors and contributors of The Ridiculous Man echo the humble prayer of St. Paul; hoping their toils may bring “at least some” men and women closer to Christ.