I agreed to write a contribution to a symposium on CELEBRITY. MY dumb thought was: How hard could that be? Pretty hard. Here are my first random observations in search of a point: Celebrity, in the most obvious sense, is the lowest form of fame. Being a celebrity is a sort of gift of public . . . . Continue Reading »
By the 18 th century the British empire no longer mediated divine rule. The ground was breaking down, order was dissolving. The American revolution produced heroic symbols that explicated the existential nature of man in the order of existence as both immanent and transcendent, and consequently a . . . . Continue Reading »
1. The genuinely realistic postmodern conservatism, from one view, is somewhere in between the Porcher and Libertarian EXTREMES. That true but precarious position, as Ralph has shown us so eloquently, eludes theoretical articulation. For most practial purposes, as I tried to add, it points in the . . . . Continue Reading »
1. So I took a few days off and now come back to this distinction, with a lot of fine comments in the thread. 2. Our Founders built better than they said. Is that because no theory can comprehend great practice? Or because there’s no theory adequate to the truth about who we are? In both . . . . Continue Reading »
So here’s a modest effort to open up a discussable little fissure in the unified vanguard of the political and philosophical juggernaut that we know as Postmodern Conservatism. Is it fair, and is it consistent with Pomocon-ism to say that the American Founders “founded better than . . . . Continue Reading »
I have an op-ed in the Washington Times that attempts to understand the explosive racial and ethnic dimension of the current debate over the new Arizona immigration law. You should read it if for no other reason than it must be the only op-ed ever that mentions both Keith Olbermann and Chesterton. . . . . Continue Reading »
Here David Brooks makes the argument that Elena Kagan, Obama’s latest nominee to the Supreme Court, is reminscent of our elite schools’ “Organization Kids”—bright, disciplined, articulate, and well-meaning junior careerists who do everything necessary to get ahead in . . . . Continue Reading »
1. Thanks to Ralph for stimulating all this discussion about our political liberalism and in general (with Sam’s help) for raising us all up. We can’t help but admire his nobility in taking on the man whom studies show and leading experts agree rescued “normative” political . . . . Continue Reading »
Thanks to Samuel and others for an excellent discussion (just below). Though I do not wish to disappoint, I find myself unconvinced that I have gone too far in criticizing Rawls, and in fact tempted to go further. 1. Epigones: Of course Rawls, no more than Strauss, say, . . . . Continue Reading »
Ralph presents his case against Rawls below. Although I agree with much of it, I think he goes too far. Here are a few rather disordered suggestions intended less to vindicate Rawls than to complicate the picture: 1. We need to distinguish between Rawls an sich (as it were) and what Ralph describes . . . . Continue Reading »
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