Two Exceptional Americans: Chris Christie and Ralph Hancock

I agree with Pete’s gushing about Christie’s speech. He’s operating on a higher and more subtle level than the other candidates. So I’m hoping he works out. (I was neither endorsing Romney nor dissing Reagan below. But there is a case for Romney, after all.) But OMG let’s not get too pumped about Christie’s awesomeness. The odds against him getting and staying in the race aren’t so great.

What we’re talking about here is the responsibility of political reason. To learn more, you need to buy this book by the legendary Ralph Hancock:

Hancock, Ralph C. *The responsibility of reason: theory and practice in
a liberal-democratic age*. Rowman & Littlefield, 2011. 329p index afp;
ISBN 9781442207370, $90.00; ISBN 9781442207394 e-book, $90.00. Reviewed
in 2011oct CHOICE.

In a synthesis of separate studies of Alexis de Tocqueville, MartinLuther and John Calvin, Martin Heidegger, and Leo Strauss, Hancock
(Brigham Young Univ.) critiques “the spiritual-intellectual framework of
modern democracy.” His thesis is that modern democracy rests on the
unsustainable modern “illusion of the simple superiority of ‘theory’ to
‘practice’” and that “the circulation of meaning between these poles
must be accepted and assumed into the very self-understanding of
reason.” Though critiques of democratic theory abound, Hancock holds
that in the postmodern age, the analysis and resolution by Tocqueville
is superior to that of Heidegger, Strauss, and contemporary philosophers
such as John Rawls and Charles Taylor. The “responsibility of reason”
must be a /political/ responsibility, deeply informed by inherited
values and practices that sustain individual and social flourishing
while offering a critical standpoint from which to question them.
Humility in the face of what cannot be known is part of this
responsibility. Hancock’s subjects and arguments often parallel Peter
Lawler’s in /Modern and American Dignity/ (2010), and the analysis of
the centrality of religion in Tocqueville echoes that of Joshua Mitchell
in /The Fragility of Freedom / (1995). *Summing Up:* Recommended.
Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, research, and professional
collections. — /E. J. Eisenach, emeritus, University of Tulsa/