By identifying and attempting to ameliorate democracy’s paradoxical excesses toward conformity and individualism, Alexis de Tocqueville sought to make democracy safe for liberty and to promote an ennobled, rather than a debased, form of equality. Among conservatives and liberals alike, the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville is perhaps the most often quoted political theorist of [...]
Modernism is an ancient phenomenon. If prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, then modernism is the world’s oldest heresy. Modernism’s essential features were already understood long before the era of modernity. Plato reveals them in his dialogue The Euthyphro. The character of Euthyphro is a prototype of modern man. In the dialogue Euthyphro is prosecuting [...]
I had remarked during my stay in the United States, that a democratic state of society, similar to that of the Americans, might offer singular facilities for the establishment of despotism; and I perceived, upon my return to Europe, how much use had already been made by most of our rulers, of the notions, the [...]
The recent high-profile controversies touched off by the HHS Mandate have elicited excellent debate regarding the meaning, importance, and application of the American idea of religious liberty. They have not, however, elicited any substantial debate regarding the rational grounds for opposing the use of contraception in itself. In the numerous conversations I have had on [...]
So I just finished reading the most recent contributions to Postmodern Conservative. The quality is high, and the depth and breadth of insight is real. And I wish I could say something to show I am anywhere near their pay grade when it comes to classical or contemporary events. I agree with Peter Spiliakos that [...]
Like all actual conservatives, I look on any increase in the powers of the Republican Party as an opportunity for disappointment. Its leaders would rather run a permanent minority than serve as part of a majority actually returning power to the states and the people. Better to be ruled by Democrats, “our” leaders believe, so [...]
Marilynne Robinson Thanks to Carl Eric Scott for calling attention to the strengths and weaknesses of the moral, political, scientific, and theological views of Marilynne Robinson (perhaps our best living novelist) by highlighting Paul Seaton’s balanced and smart review of her latest book of essays. Ms. Robinson’s thought really is neo-Puritanical. Mr. Seaton and Mr. Scott, knowing, as they do, [...]
If there are two things that one is likely to hear from college faculty today, they are that 1. Students are too careerist, and 2. We need a more democratic society. They worry about the growing utilitarian cast of education in general, as well as the remnants of hierarchy, authority, paternalism, and inequality in today’s [...]
Liberal democracy is unnatural. It is a product of power and security, not innate human sociability. It is peculiar rather than universal, accidental rather than teleologically preordained. And Americans have been shaped by its framework throughout their history. History ended on October 14, 1806. That was the day of the Battle of Jena, the turning [...]
While recuperating from a knee and shoulder injury, I used my forced idleness to read two very different English writers: the eighteenth-century historian Edward Gibbon and the twentieth-century mystery novelist John Buchan. Despite the gravity of his magisterial Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Mr. Gibbon, it turns out, shared at least one assumption [...]
From a certain view, the most probing question Alexis de Tocqueville had to answer in Democracy in America is “Why are the Americans so restless in the midst of prosperity?” Why can’t they just stop and enjoy all their good fortune? Why are those workaholics almost running away from leisure? Why do those pursuers of [...]
In response to the Boston Tea Party, Parliament passed five of what the Americans called the “Intolerable Acts.” A group of disgruntled Marylanders reacted by forming the Annapolis Convention, which sought ways to “best secure American liberty” and which sparked resistance to British “tyranny” throughout the colonies. On January 19, 1774, the news of the [...]
To begin with a simple point, one basic insight of Tocqueville is that things are always getting better and worse. Thus, it is hardly surprising that Tocqueville could be used to defend the advantages of religious establishment. He, more generally, is unrivaled in arousing a kind of selective nostalgia that helps us remember the advantages [...]
The financial crisis and lingering economic malaise have resulted in an extended debate as to the proper sphere of markets and government in society. Unsurprisingly, a large number of social critics have ignored the degree of government intervention that existed in financial markets on the eve of the crisis, falsely caricaturing the financial panic as [...]