On Fridays we bring you the week’s best from around the web. This week’s collection includes a conversation on happiness, an artist’s insight into her work, and more.
1. “The Flower that Fled from Its Vase” by Joseph Cunningham, Humane Pursuits
Art, especially, is a vocation. A calling. Something to be shared for the betterment of humanity. Something to by which to lift, to ignite, to implore, to influence others through the universal language of beauty.
2. “The Pursuit of Happiness”: To close out AEI’s first Evangelical Leadership Summit this week, Arthur Brooks, Eric Metaxas, and Greg Thornbury discuss a Christian approach to happiness, suffering, and the good life.
3. “How Democracy Dies” by Patrick Deneen, The American Conservative
Today, “thought leaders” are likely to call for more democracy by restraining the power of the Corporations and global market. But we need to discern more clearly that the very prominence of these institutions, along with a “tutelary” government, is itself the result of “democracy.” What we need is not “more” democracy, but better democracy—developing the arts of self-government closer to home.
4. “See Which U.S. States Are Best for Entrepreneurship (#1 Will Surprise You)” by Sean Davis, The Federalist
Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) released a new study on American entrepreneurship, and the results are fascinating. The study created an entrepreneurship index by state in order to rank which states were the best (and worst) places to start a new business in the U.S.
5. “How a Box of Cereal Changed an Industry” by Michael Hendrix, Values & Capitalism
Joe and Brian had an idea. It was a crazy idea, in fact. Sell 1000 boxes of cereal at $40 a pop. Not only were they planning to hawk something at over ten times its retail price, but this was 2008, just as America was sinking into one of the worst recessions in recent memory.
