I know that the President is busily engaged in these days with the highest affairs of state, chairing a session of the UN Security Council (a first, I believe, for an American President) and then heading off tomorrow to a meeting of the G-20 in Pittsburgh, Pa. No doubt, too, if the President remains true to form, he must have “an important speech” scheduled sometime in this period, perhaps to be delivered from a window of Air Force One, thirty thousand feet above ground, to those bitter and benighted citizens of Western Pennsylvania over whom he will be flying.

Despite these pressing issues, I want to revisit this morning the more important matter of the President’s dog, Bo, less for what it says about this President or his two lovely children, than for what it says about the nature of democracy. If there is any greater proof needed of the ruling spirit of the “idea of equality” in our time than the story attached to the Obamas’ dog, I can’t imagine what it would be. It is a script taken right from the pages of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, recently referenced on this blog site in an article by the SBE (“senior blog editor), Ivan K.

Here are the facts. After a long period of suspense, the Obamas, either seeking the assistance of or acceding to pressure from, the late Senator Kennedy, a personage of enormous wealth, procured for the family pet a Portuguese Water Dog (PWD). There was good reason for a dog of this breed, as one of the Obamas’ daughters has allergies relating to dog hair (PWD’s do not shed). There was just one problem, and that troublesome little word, “breed.” Breed is an aristocratic term (think of “blue blood”), and there is no world in which the notion of “rank,” and “pedigree” plays a more conspicuous role. The whole idea of “papers,” along with lineage and exclusive clubs, like the AKC, testify to aristocratic notions. It is a world filled with snobbism. (My former dog Bel, as indomitable a “natural aristocrat” as there ever was, to use Jefferson’s terminology, lacked papers or pedigree and was excluded from many a competition that she was destined to win.)

The difficulty, of course, for the aristocratic concept is that the American public understands this world, and the vast majorities of dog owners in this land reject it, proudly preferring their mutts (and guns). Just look at the rhetoric of how most run for the presidency. They do so, where they can, by openly touting their “democratic” origins, one more than the next. To run for high office in the USA with the background of a poor, even a broken, family is clearly counted as a badge of honor. The last thing you want is to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth, and those who are have a real problem in somehow discounting their “papers.” Candidates like Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and Mike Huckabee all made their humble origins an important part of their personal sagas. As for President Obama, recall that on the day of his very first news conference as President, he referred to himself as a “mutt.” The context also was significant, for it came up in a query about the (then) prospective family dog. Obama gave the proper democratic response. After noting his special need on the allergy question, he went on to say that the “our preference would be to get a shelter dog,” or “a mutt, like me.”

Which brings us back to the PWD. This is an animal of breed, and a beautiful and noble one at that. Hence the need in a democracy to (somehow) soften the offense. In obtaining this animal, the White House let it be known (apart from the allergy problem) that Bo, though a dog of pedigree, was a dog that had been rejected by a previous family. This fact of rejection or abandonment, it was no doubt thought, would be sufficient to restore the animal’s democratic credentials. Perhaps. But I have it on a wholly reliable source from the dog world that this was a pure “cover story.” The dog was not really abandoned, but being properly trained—I hope according to the splendid regime spelled out by Xenephon in his treatise on dogs.

To complete the narrative, the President apparently redeemed his initial promise to get a shelter dog by making a contribution to the DC Humane Society. A bit like a carbon offset. Noblesse Oblige.

I was told last Friday by this site’s SBE (“senior blog editor”), Ivan Kenneally, that an encounter between any two members of the postmodern conservative masthead, for whatever licit reason, is sufficient to warrant a posting. So here I am. I had occasion on Thursday to visit Kenneally’s home turf, Rochester Institute of Technology, to deliver the annual Constitution Day Lecture. This same lecture was given in the past by another pomocon writer, Peter Lawler, whose reputation in the community is so high that there is talk of naming a segment of the Erie Canal after him. It was also an opportunity to meet with many of the members of the fine political science department at RIT and to be treated to one of the better examples of Italian cuisine to be found east of Genova.
The topic I chose was the idea of a written constitution, which was one of the founders’ most important innovations. According to Thomas Jefferson, and what higher human source is there?, the state of Virginia in 1776 was the first government ever—ever meaning as in all of time—to produce a written constitution, i.e., a document that sketches the whole frame of government. By the time of the constitutional convention in 1787, after other states had adopted and modified this technique, there was already something of a theory of the status of a written constitution, of what it should include, and of how it should be drafted and how approved. The innovation of a written constitution made possible the elevation of law above government (see Federalists 53 and 78) and the consent of the governed (for how can people officially consent to something unless they can see what is in it and approve of it?). In addition, at least in the founders’ version of the theory of a written constitution (as distinct from Jefferson’s) a direct connection is established between the founders’ thought and the political thought of all subsequent generations. (This idea is explicated in Federalist 49, which I have tried to honor by adopting it as my license plate, “Fed 49,” leaving eighty-four other papers to be selected by conscientious Virginians.)
But was a written constitution a good idea? Perhaps it was not really so much a new theory as one that had been considered before and rejected by wiser heads. This was the suggestion of that iconoclastic conservative writer Joseph de Maistre of that age, a man obsessed with discounting anything that might smack as an innovation, above all something that came from America. (De Maistre went off, for example, on the effort to form a new city—Washington, D.C.—a position that some in the recent tea parties have all but seemed to endorse.) De Maistre could have made some very telling arguments, which were suggested a long time ago by the classics. If there are always exceptions to a rule—even a good rule—then it could be unwise to enshrine it into a rule that is deemed “higher” and unchangeable under the circumstances. Either you follow the rule and perish, or you break the rule and forever undermine credibility and respect for the rule of law as such. No human institution should ever be constructed that does not leave room for discretion, the kind of discretion that allows someone, for the public good, to set aside any rule. So from this point of view, there could be wisdom in the “theory” that underlies the unwritten constitution of Britain (or that used to underlie it before it joined the EU). It is implicit in Blackstone’s wonderful passage referring to the powers of parliament: “It hath sovereign and uncontrolable authority in making, confirming, enlarging, restraining, abrogating, repealing, reviving, and expounding of laws, concerning matters of all possible denominations, ecclesiastical, or temporal, civil, military, maritime, or criminal: this being the place where that absolute despotic power, which must in all governments reside somewhere, is entrusted by the constitution of these kingdoms. All mischiefs and grievances, operations and remedies, that transcend the ordinary course of the laws, are within the reach of this extraordinary tribunal.”
All written constitutions face this kind of dilemma. Some handle it by the expedient of having an opt-out procedure within the constitution, allowing for the constitution to be suspended during certain periods and for the executive to exercise emergency powers. Another view—which many believe is inside the American constitution—contends that the written constitution already allows, under the constitution, for the exercise of necessary emergency-like powers when the situation warrants.
Well, Joseph de Maistre did not dwell on these points. He instead referred us back to a broader question, which of course I did not have either the time or inclination to present to the predominantly undergraduate audience at RIT, but which I raise for the more speculative-minded Pomocon readers: is it wise to put anything of importance in writing? This question is one Socrates addresses, on doubt with a touch of irony, in the Phaedrus, 275-d and e: “And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves.” No one with any sense would write down anything, at least not anything serious. If you read some so-called interpreters of our Constitution today, those who prattle on about its invisible interstices, you will have some sympathy with Socrates’s comment; these are interpreters who really could use some “parental” supervision.
And yet, all things considered, I am happy that Plato and Xenephon chose to write down “Socrates’” words, even if they never perhaps committed the most serious part to the written page. What they left us is still more than enough for us to chew on. Speaking of which, consider a thought from a higher source on how to digest some of your favorite works: “And he said to me, ‘Son of man, eat whatever you find here. Eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.’ 2So I opened my mouth, and he gave me this scroll to eat. 3And he said to me, ‘Son of man, feed your belly with this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it.’ Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey.” (Ezekiel 3:1-3)
There is still wisdom and majesty in that document that begins “We the People of the United States…” if only we would read it with care.

What does health care have to do with foreign policy?
Not much, one might think. But there was a paragraph in President Obama’s speech last night that drew a connection between the two in a way that was at best troubling and at worst demagogic. It appeared in the context of the President’s attempt to provide his audience with an intuitive grasp of the cost of his plan. His words bear quotation in full:

“Now, add it all up and the plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years, less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration.”

What is one to make of this passage? It could be read, I suppose, as a good faith effort to let Americans know what they will be asked to pay for, although one is hard-pressed to know whether his implication is that the plan is relatively manageable (after all we have somehow “managed” to pay for these wars) or massively expensive. But it seems that the real point of selecting these examples to illustrate the point, at least for anyone who has listened to political rhetoric of the last few years, is the “moral” one. The standard position of those on the Left has been that the “expenditures” on the wars or on tax cuts for the rich are unconscionable, especially given the pressing social welfare needs for which this money could have been used.

Democrats have employed variants of this rhetorical formula so often that it practically enjoys the status of a political trope, one designed to invoke an automatic response (disgust). How many times, for example, did Barack Obama as candidate use just this kind rhetoric? Here is one instance:

“For what folks in this state [West Virginia] have been spending on the Iraq war, we could be giving health care to nearly 450,000 of your neighbors, hiring nearly 30,000 new elementary school teachers, and making college more affordable for over 300,000 students. We could be fighting to put the American dream within reach for every American…” (University of Charleston, March 20, 2008)

All of this still “works” for Barack Obama, except for one thing. He is President of the United States and he strongly supports the War in Afghanistan, asking soldiers daily to sacrifice their lives for that cause. Less than a month ago he rousingly defended the policy before the Veteran’s of Foreign Wars not as “a war of choice” but as “a war of necessity.” True enough, during the campaign as well, Obama always gave his support to the Afghan war, in contrast to the Iraq War, which was the “war of choice.” The question now, however, is why he would include Afghanistan inside of a rhetorical appeal that rests on the implicit notion, at least to his own partisans, of the scandal of wasting funds. And why he would do this at the very point when he is calling on Americans to make greater sacrifices for that venture? A President who is a serious war-time President, a position he has embraced for himself, might wish to think twice before evoking sentiments that raise doubts about his own policies.

I received yesterday the following email from a friend of mine recuperating at the University of Virginia Hospital, and I know he would have no qualms about sharing part of it with the readers of the Postmodern conservative blog. It goes on for a while—he is a professor of cultural studies—but its message is well worth considering, all the more so because of the remarkable circumstances under which it was written.

It could not have occurred at a more inopportune moment.

Like all of my friends, I invested most of my mental and moral energy last year in the campaign to elect Barack Obama. I thrilled at the prospect of a New Era, not only of peace abroad, but of sane policies at home. Eight years of a bumbling religious fundamentalist, driven by a naïve ideology in foreign affairs and an outmoded attachment to markets (and to wealthy friends) in domestic affairs, were enough. More than enough.

We truly needed change. And yes—I, an academic, was not ashamed to embrace a slogan—we needed “change we could believe in.” I even put a sign on my front lawn, like everyone else in my diversified neighborhood, testifying to that very point. With Obama’s historic victory in November, I began to dream of a new order—of acres of new wind turbines silently generating clean energy, of sleek bullet trains seamlessly linking our great metropolises, and of a modernized tax system under which the rich would finally pay their fair share. Even when the great financial crash occurred last September, which all recognized would place new burdens and constraints on the new administration, there was still a basis for hope. The crisis could be “leveraged” politically by our new President to help usher in the New Era.

Everything was moving in the right direction in January, with the President’s Inauguration and his stirring address to Congress. Then suddenly, on February 1, 2009, feeling suddenly extremely tired in a way I had never experienced before, I was taken to the University of Virginia Hospital. The first few moments I dimly recall, the thermometer being stuck into my mouth, the gray band being wrapped around my arm to take blood pressure, and the series of annoying questions being asked about my health insurance policy (which I thankfully reassured myself, even in that debilitated state, would very soon be a thing of the past). Then everything went blank.

I can only reconstruct things now, with the help of the nurses who have been assisting me for the past two days in figuring out what had happened. It appears that I fell asleep that night in the emergency room and did not awake until yesterday. The doctors, including some of the great specialists of the commonwealth—the University Hospital boasts of being one of the 100 institutions in the country—were confounded as to an exact diagnosis. Their best guesses were either sleeping sickness (also known as trypanosomiasis) or “Rip Van Winkle disease” (officially known as Kleine-Levin syndrome), which sounded more kosher to me. But the truth is no one really knows.

In any case, I woke up yesterday, nearly six months after my “Great Hibernation,” the term I have adopted to describe the event. To my dismay I realized that I had missed completely the dawning of the New Era, almost as if I had been there for the creation of light, but then was wisped away only to return on the day of rest. Physically, though, I felt perfectly fine—so fine, in fact, that I wanted to go home immediately. Yet as the cause of my disease was unknown, the medical staff insisted on keeping me at least a couple of days for observation.

After visiting with my family, I have now had time to begin to catch up on the events over the past six months, relying on a couple of the back weeks of the New York Times and some copies of Newsweek that are down the hall in the lounge. Plus my room gets network TV and a few of the cable news channels like CNN and MSNBC. And what an exhilarating day it has been! I have learned just how much has changed, how a New Era with a new way of thinking established itself and how the Old Era with its “old think” has begun to recede. Picking up a Times from last week, I saw just how much ground “old think” has had to yield. I read that in the Old Era, the CIA had concocted a crazy plan, engineered with the support of Vice President Cheney, to try to kill leaders of Al-Qaeda, all the while concealing this matter from Congress. Thankfully, though, in the New Era, no one now is falling for this kind of stuff. The Speaker of the House will no longer permit Congress to be disparaged: A lie is called a lie.

It is also gratifying to learn that the era of post partisanship has in fact arrived in Washington, replacing the bitter division and cynicism of old.      One representative of “old think,” which was expressed in a letter in the Times, tried to insist that there had been more efforts at bipartisanship in the Old Era, in measures such as No Child Left Behind and the Prescription Drug Benefit Plan. But this is nonsense. I watched President Obama’s news conference last night, and he established beyond any question that the truest test of post partisanship is not whether one receives support from the other side, but whether the majority “listens” to what the other side says. By this new and superior criterion, endorsed by E. J. Dionne and others, the administration is clearly exceeding all expectations. It is even doing so by listening to Republicans, which is a sign of just how far the President has been willing to go.

It was heartening, too, to see how well the administration’s signature legislative achievement, the stimulus package, has been succeeding. I remember, before the Hibernation how excited I had been at the thought of the thousands of “shovel ready projects” that were to be assisted. Here at the University, our deans wrote to urge us to get our research projects “shovel ready” in an effort to scrape up some of the funds. Above all, I recalled a press conference with an enthusiastic, yet stern, Vice President Biden telling us all, “We got to get it right.” It turned out that a few of the assumptions on which the package had been based had been flawed—this was a residue of “old think”—but the Vice-President was up to the task, boldly urging, in the spirit of the “new era of responsibility,” that we spend our way out of bankruptcy.

The New Energy plans are only now getting going. I read of a slight setback on this score, when T “Wind Mills” Pickens, who in January had promised to cover the entire Texas panhandle with a wind farm, had to pull back because of economic considerations. But clean energy with hundreds of thousands of new jobs is still in our future, and the administration has already begun by supporting further ethanol subsidies, which the “best science”—and not mere politics—has proven to be a boon to the environment.

One of the best things about the New Era is the open and frank conversation we are having about race, led by the president. I was pleased to see it on display at the press conference I watched last night, when the president spoke so eloquently about the flight of his friend, poor Skip Gates, and the indignity he had to endure from a racially insensitive white police officer. One thing is clear, the President had learned something from his Philadelphia speech on race last spring, when he made the error, as some so infelicitously out it, of throwing his own grandmother “under the bus.” Rest assured that Professor Gates will not be placed in that position.

A new Foreign Policy, I learned, has been put into place, and its effects have been at once enormous and beneficial. By an aggressive use of soft power, chiefly the product of the President’s own stirring rhetoric, we have already reversed the bad image of America in the world. Pew polls realized just today document the shift. If the President was able to win over the people of Iowa, mesmerize millions in Berlin, then why should he not able to be able to bring the entire Muslim world into his camp, as he did in his speech in Cairo? And we know that it worked. The people of Iran, many speculated, may have turned on their own mullahs as a result of this speech. Still, in an abundance of prudence, the administration’s wise new realist thrust determined that it was in our nation’s interest not to meddle in Iranian affairs and to continue the dialogue with the current authorities, even as it was clear that our national interest dictated that we work with President Chavez to help bring the deposed Mr. Zelaya back to power in Honduras.

But the most exhilarating development of all, however, has been the change of tone in the press. I have to admit here that maybe proponents of “old think” had half a point when they complained that it was not always a good thing for the Press to exhibit an instinctive adversarial relationship to the president, as much as that posture may have been justified in the case of Mr. Bush. Perhaps journalists had become, too much so, “nattering nabobs of negativism.” So it has been welcome, in reading The New York Times and Newsweek, and in watching the network news, to pick up a hint of a new and more generous spirit being shown to the President. We are not witnessing, of course, the development of anything like a spontaneous Ministry of Truth in the private sector—such a thing I could never endorse, even if it supported my own views—but simply an honest rendering of the facts. Plus I note that the Times still retains a critical edge: just after chief commentator David Brooks writes a column ranking Mr. Obama among the greatest presidents, he surprises (and disappoints) you by writing another suggesting that he could be ranked among the lesser figures.

The message goes on, but I leave off at this point wishing my friend a speedy recovery and a future of sleepless nights.

James W. Ceaser

I was deeply impressed with Peter Lawler’s fine essay, NASA Needs A Philosopher, above all with his last point—number 7—about the possible character of relations with other “civilizations” we might encounter in the universe. I wrote an essay on this same point in 1979, which was published in the journal The Fletcher Forum. It went largely unnoticed at the time, except for a few critical reviews—all propaganda—from some undercover aliens. I am “reprinting” it today in the hope that it will provoke further reflections on Peter’s point. Please excuse some of the anachronisms.

Most Americans may not realize it, but the United States Government now has what amounts to an official intra-galactic policy. Our position was formulated in the decision to allow the Pioneer and Voyager space probes to go beyond the solar system carrying messages designed to communicate with alien beings. Included among the items for alien perusal are: pulsar-based maps that give the exact location of the earth, pictures of the tree toad, the DNA structure, and the human sex organs; musical selections from Bach, Beethoven, and Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”; recorded sounds of whales, mudpots, and a hyena; and a message from President Carter reminiscent of some of his early campaign speeches.

Despite what might seem a clear parallel between intra-galactic and international affairs, foreign policy considerations were apparently ignored in adopting this open-door posture. Neither Kissinger nor Brzezinski, for example, were consulted, although passing over Kissinger may have been a charitable act: one shudders to think of the myriad possibilities under a balance of power approach on an intra-galactic scale. Instead, the policy of sending out probes was proposed by NASA as a scientific, not a political, matter. Yet if there is anything serious about these efforts at communication — and the large fees spent in preparing the messages suggests this was the case — one might well question the wisdom of substituting a scientific judgment, based on the precept of a free and universal exchange of knowledge, for a political judgment, based on assumptions derived from the conduct of international affairs. Our decision to allow open communication carries the equivalent danger of an aboriginal tribesman’s advertising his tribe’s existence by sending a smoke signal to an unexplored world “out there.” Unless in desperate straits, such an enthusiastic effort at communication could well be an act that the tribe would live to regret.

Human understanding has supposedly advanced from these primitive beginnings, not only in the realm of science but in political affairs as well. But lapses into utter thoughtlessness give one reason for pause. Scientists now often complain — and with some justice — about the insidious uses to which politicians sometimes put their discoveries. Yet this should not obscure the fact that politicians may have equal cause for concern over the scientists’ neglect of the most elementary political considerations. The scientist lives in a world and perhaps a universe of non-scientists. The ideal “community of scientists” bears little resemblance to the so-called community of nations, nor, perhaps, to what President Carter referred to in his Voyager message as the “community of galactic civilizations.”

All this talk about intra-galactic politics might seem to lie within the province of science fiction, not public policy. So perhaps it is to science fiction that we should look for instruction in these matters — and specifically to the two sci-fi movie blockbusters that captured Americans’ attention in 1977, Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Part of the success of Star Wars was attributed to its being pure entertainment and an escape from reality. But this opinion is open to question, Viewers may have sensed in the movie what some of our policymakers have forgotten: that the nature of intra-galactic politics, like that of international relations, is likely to resemble a Thucydidean universe of strife and conflict, where force rules the day. The film portrays a despotic power bent on subjugating the entire galaxy and establishing a universal order under the dominance of a tyrannical regime. But this scheme is foiled by the courageous exploits of a remnant monarchic order fighting to preserve liberty and traditional principles of human rights. The monarchy prevails over the new scientific despotism by the old-fashioned method of military force. The movie’s only deviation from a traditional understanding of conflict is found in the monarchy’s reliance on the “Force”—a power that resembles Rollo May’s thought in action. This flight to fantasy may have been a necessary concession to assuage the subconscious fears of Americans at a time when the United States is falling dangerously behind the Soviet Union in the international arms race.

The other movie, Close Encounters, is on the surface more realistic and serious—and thus at times unavoidably more pretentious. It points to a very different kind of intra-galactic order, one based on the principles of Kant’s Perpetual Peace. Of course, from the plot of the movie itself, one cannot be certain that the visiting aliens are public emissaries carrying out official intra-galactic policy; it may be that they are only the extraterrestrial equivalent of American anthropologists studying natives in New Guinea on a Ford Foundation grant. Yet the emphasis placed on the kindness and “humanism” of the aliens — with the sole exception of some temporary kidnappings — is no doubt designed to suggest a benevolent universe. Science and reason evolve to the point where force is no longer necessary; all are citizens of the universe. This noble and uplifting vision is supported by the central theme of the movie: languages, by which people are divided into distinct and particular entities, are overcome through communication by a single universal “language” based on musical tonality. Of course the acceptance of this vision — which is the vision of science — runs directly counter to the Biblical teaching. According to Genesis, God created a Babel of different languages precisely because science in a universal state was being employed for a mischievous end to discover what man should not know. The suggestion is surely that Divine wisdom includes knowledge of the practical precept of divide and conquer.

What assumptions underlie our own view of intra-galactic affairs? Popular opinion — as registered at the movie box offices — apparently is disposed to accept the “hard” view of Star Wars more than the “soft” one of Close Encounters. But policy is not made by public opinion, and just as in the conduct of international relations, the decisions on galactic affairs lie in the hands of those with more “enlightened” views than the citizenry at large. In any event, the operative vision behind American policy is the one implicitly contained in Close Encounters. It is a testimony to the essential trustfulness of one segment of enlightened opinion that we ignore all earthly experience and put our faith in the existence of a universal empire of perfect wisdom and virtue. Otherwise, we might be hesitant to offer — free of charge and without precondition — some very valuable information, such as where we are and what we are made of. If the aliens are not as peaceful as some suppose — and if the usual conditions of scarcity apply to the universe no less than to the earth — it is a good bet that at this very moment there arc alien intelligence agents scouring the galaxy for just this kind of scoop. (Indeed, science fiction buffs need hardly be reminded that in last year’s movie Star Trek unknown aliens transform our long-lost Voyager probe into an earth-threatening monster.)

Fortunately, if we have erred by our imprudence, our sins will not be visited upon our children, our children’s children, nor even their children, unless, of course, science has by then managed to create a race of Methuselahs. According to NASA, the probes will not reach another solar system for at least 40,000 years — time enough, perhaps, for us to re-examine our position and take some precautionary steps.

Private correspondence from several readers of the Postmodern Conservative Blog expressed incredulity that I ever went to Kansas. I offer the photo below as one piece of evidence to prove that the trip took place in historical time, roughly as described in the post entitled “Osawatomie or Bust.”

Author Celebrating Independence on Bridge in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas (photo by Jennifer Ceaser)

If your taste is presidential history, with a penchant for progress or change you will want to venture to the lovely old town of Staunton, Virginia, birthplace of Woodrow Wilson. A museum has been constructed to Wilson’s honor, and the house where he came into this world and lived for a few months is open to visit. I would say the same thing if your taste is for a certain brand of pop country music, with an admiration for a bass voice. Staunton happens also to be the birthplace of the Statler brothers, recently inducted into the country music hall of fame. As you enter town, on the outskirts, you cross Statler Brothers Boulevard, which, with its fast food outlets and closed failing auto dealerships is not exactly up to Wilson’s standard of dignity. Perhaps not all change is progress after all.

There is a third reason, however, to visit Staunton, which is William Shakespeare. So far as I know he wasn’t born there, though Staunton in Shenandoah does have a remote resonance to Stratford on Avon. But Staunton has the Blackfriars playhouse, a replica of the London original, and the wonderful Shenandoah Shakespeare Company. So what better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than to make the trek over the mountains from Charlottesville, with all three fellows from the Program for Constitutionalism and Democracy (PCD), to view The Comedy of Errors?

I won’t even try to summarize the play except to say that it is the ultimate experiment in identical twin observation before modern science took up this theme and subjected it to all the rigors of the modern experimental method. The twins are so identical (there are two pair of them) that they cannot be distinguished. They are so identical that one twin, stranded in the city of his brother (Ephesus) and likened by everyone to his brother, begins to question his own identity. And so does his brother. Is he who he thought he was? Here is perspectivalism carried to its outermost limit. It is funny, but also horrifying — or at least Gadamer thought so. The key passage is uttered by Antipholus (of Syracuse): “Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?/ Sleeping or waking, mad or ill-advised?/Known unto these, and to myself disguised?”

For those going into the play are looking for nature, this was most disquieting. My faith in the “one true and common world perceived in waking” — a world of common sense perception that can serve as a starting point for all thought — was thrown suddenly into question. Does such a starting point exist? Or is even the starting point “constructed”? Alas, poor phenomenology, I knew it well.

In the end, Shakespeare brings us back to reality when the twins at last discover themselves and everything gets sorted out: All’s well that ends well.