Darwinian Larry likes my comparison of him and Sheldon Cooper. Larry continues to have a rather traditional Southern Baptist view–”I’ll fly away”–of heaven. Still, his questions are serious. If you scroll through his most serious website, he considers the possibility that there’s something sociopathological in Strauss’ view that the philosopher doesn’t possess or take seriously deep down moral virtue. And he’s pretty sure that Heidegger was a sociopath. That there’s something wrong with the claim that the philosopher is liberated from personal concerns, in my opinion, is more a Christian than a Darwinian criticism.
Ray Bradbury was also a Christian who was all about the Great Books.
Two teaching “issues”: What’s a not obviously conservative book written in the last few years of sufficient weight to be used in a contemporary political thought class? What’s an introductory book on presidential elections etc. for background for an intro American government class?
Who else has the heretical thought that Scott Walker’s victory was not so impressive given how many Wisconsin voters simply thought that he didn’t do anything bad enough to justify a kind of quasi-impeachment?
June 8th, 2012 | 8:59 am
What else is on your contemporary political thought syllabus?
June 8th, 2012 | 11:34 am
By coincidence, I am looking for a book for my contemporary pol. thought course.
I am assigning: Mill’s “On Liberty”; Strauss’s “Liberalism: Ancient and Modern” (but not Ch. 5-7)”; and a few essays including Stanley Fish’s “Mission Impossible” (which deconstructs tolerance) and “There’s no such thing as free speech, and its a good thing too”
Fish is a good non-conservative who is fun to read – he certainly is good at challenging both the liberal and conservative status quo. But too much of him becomes tedious.
I am considering ending with a Pierre Manent book likely “The City of Man” but have not convinced myself yet.
I would rather end with a contemporary novel, but can’t seem to find a good fit. I would be happy for any good ideas.
June 8th, 2012 | 11:36 am
For the teaching: if you want something obviously not-conservative (and not merely not obviously conservative), how about one of Raymond Geuss’s recent books, perhaps History and Illusion in Politics (2001)? Geuss is the most lucid writer I know in a post-Frankfurt-school vein, and he’s not afraid to shake up the ordinary assumptions of the Right, Middle or Left. The weight factor is definitely there.
My humble two cents, as a not very political philosopher who likes Aristotle and who’s not usually attracted to the sons of Frankfurt.
June 8th, 2012 | 12:10 pm
Will order Geuss
Books so far probably: Scruton, Rorty, McWilliams,
Tyler Cowen, maybe Bloom
The Jefferson lectures by Berry, Kass, Mansfield, Percy. Supporting stuff on Berry and Kass
Articles by Ceaser, Deneen (although not the new one), Bob Kraynak, Darwinian Larry, Ronald Bailey, Manent, Solzhenitsyn
So not LIBERAL enough
June 8th, 2012 | 12:16 pm
Raymond G looks like just the ticket–ordered two his even more recent books that look more at the undergrad pay grade.
June 8th, 2012 | 12:52 pm
Well, if you want liberal (i.e., officially, “mainstream”), there’s the big survey book by Kymlicka, dreary in many ways, but has the virtue of providing you and your undergrads with a SUMMARY of Rawls. Still kind of a dense survey, but makes more teaching sense than actually trying to march kids through Rawls’ own books.
June 8th, 2012 | 2:28 pm
For Rawls-lite, I’d prefer a Rawlsian kind of exploration of some actual issue.
June 8th, 2012 | 3:02 pm
You could have the public sphere debate beginning with Rawls’ “Idea of Public Reason Revisited.” Responses might include articles by Habermas, Wolterstorff, and Rorty.
Something by Luc Ferry. I like to use Man Made God. Humanism motivated by contemporary ethical and political problems and constructed mostly with the help of Kant and the phenomenological tradition.
June 8th, 2012 | 3:10 pm
Who is Rawls?
June 8th, 2012 | 10:17 pm
Re Walker – I think the passion on the side of conservatives can be seen in the large turnout in Milwaukee and huge margins in almost every county outside of Milwaukee, Kenosha, and Madison. I really think the left overplayed their hand and turned a lot of moderate people off. Not to mention Act 10 is working…so well that Barrett didn’t run on collective bargaining.
I think one of the most troubling aspects of the exit polls (with their flaws) is the huge racial divide in the recall vote. Whites were fairly even, but blacks came out something like 75% for Barrett. In the city of Milwaukee unemployment of black males is running 44%, yet they clearly supported a mayor who has done nothing for them.
June 9th, 2012 | 5:31 am
Two teaching “issues”: What’s a not obviously conservative book written in the last few years of sufficient weight to be used in a contemporary political thought class? What’s an introductory book on presidential elections etc. for background for an intro American government class?
Actually, they should drop these classes and study a serious subject, i.e. economics or quantitative sociology.
June 9th, 2012 | 7:29 am
Habermas–of late has good opinions but is hard to read and is only worth reading for a professional theorist. The agreeable dialogue between him and the pope on the future of Europe is of course now very interesting to Mr. Ceaser, but the American situation doesn’t really fit into either side.
Public reason–has been outed successfully as liberal conventionalism by Rawls. So again only interesting for professional theorists. I resist the temptation to write a lot about Rorty is just a whole lot better than Rawls and Rawlsians. The not-so-latent transhumanism of Rawls and especially Rawlsians is interesting to me, of course.
I sort of like Luc Ferry but for my audience the American transhumanists work better. Bourgeois enlightenment hubris…
Art Deco–pretty funny, I hope.
June 9th, 2012 | 7:31 am
I should probably take your class, Sara. And it’s a good point that Barrett conceded the collective bargaining issue, and Obama sort of did too.
June 9th, 2012 | 2:22 pm
Patrick, The City of Man isn’t really political philosophy; plus, it’s a very difficult book for beginners. (It’s a philosophical analysis of “modern consciousness” and Manent himself thought he needed to subsequently address certain misunderstandings of his view of “modernity” that the book naturally gave rise to.) I’d recommend A World beyond Politics? It is Manent doing political philosophy, i.e., articulating the fundamental “statics and dynamics” of the present situation (circa 2001). It’s a model for how a mind steeped in the full tradition of western political philosophy and social thought turns his attention to the present and analyses it sine ira et studio (nor is it merely descriptive: his normative criteria are “the political nature of man” and “the political condition of mankind”). It would be more accessible to your students and give them a much better model for how to think about politics, economics, society, etc. than 90% of today’s theory.
June 9th, 2012 | 10:26 pm
Transhumanism of course can be imagined long before it is ever possible. Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse seems to be an exploration of the darker alternatives.
June 10th, 2012 | 7:39 pm
Thanks, Paul – I have ordered a few Manent books to look through (I have read none of his yet) – so what you write is very helpful
June 11th, 2012 | 7:20 pm
[...] Peter Lawler is right that the public perception of the recall procedure as being inappropriate for normal political [...]
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact