In his provocatively titled essay “Conservative Postmodernism, Postmodern Conservatism,” the late philosopher Peter Lawler argued that one of the defining characteristics of modernity is the elevation of the individual over the groups to which he or she belongs. The result, writes Lawler, is a society made up of people detached from the bonds of religion, community, and even family, and therefore plagued by a sense of spiritual “homelessness.” In conversation with Alan Rubenstein, Daniel Mark analyzes the essay, explores the virtues and vices of individualism, and asks whether Lawler’s case for an alternative that he calls “conservative postmodernism”—articulated from an explicitly Christian perspective—can be applied to Judaism. (Audio, 40 minutes. Options for download and streaming are available at the link below.)

Israel will likely respond directly against Iran after yesterday’s attack, and has made known that it will calibrate its retaliation based not on the extent of the damage, but on the scale of the attack. The specifics are anyone’s guess, but Edward Luttwak has a suggestion, put forth in an article published just hours before the missile barrage: cut off Tehran’s ability to send money and arms to Shiite Arab militias.

In practice, most of this cash comes from a single source: oil. . . . In other words, the flow of dollars that sustains Israel’s enemies, and which has caused so much trouble to Western interests from the Syrian desert to the Red Sea, emanates almost entirely from the oil loaded onto tankers at the export terminal on Khark Island, a speck of land about 25 kilometers off Iran’s southern coast. Benjamin Netanyahu warned in his recent speech to the UN General Assembly that Israel’s “long arm” can reach them too. Indeed, Khark’s location in the Persian Gulf is relatively close. At 1,516 kilometers from Israel’s main airbase, it’s far closer than the Houthis’ main oil import terminal at Hodeida in Yemen—a place that was destroyed by Israeli jets in July, and attacked again [on Sunday].