Nathan Schlueter is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Hillsdale College. He is the author of several books and articles, as well as the popular online course “Introduction to Western Philosophy.”
What would happen if we dropped that charged word “liberalism” from the conversation and got down to specifics? I suspect much of Patrick Deneen’s postliberal magic would disappear.
Although social contract theory is a prominent feature of the American founding, it is both unsound and harmful to a proper understanding of politics. This fact presents a challenge to any form of conservatism that is based on protecting and promoting the principles of the American founding.
Schools are closed. Sports and music lessons are cancelled. Everyone is at home. What are you going to do? Instead of allowing coronavirus to control your life, why not plan for leisure? We can make this evil an occasion for despair, or we can choose to see it as a “severe mercy” for our benefit, our joy, and ultimately our sanctification.
“Cat Person” powerfully reveals one of the most tragic costs of the sexual revolution: the fading possibility of true personal intimacy between a man and a woman.
The remedy for utopianism is not the suppression of the utopian imagination but its education. Genuine poetic education assists in the development of right reason, and it is the only effective remedy to the cheap sentimental allures of propaganda.
The new antiliberals are not wrong to worry about the dire state of American politics and culture. But they persistently fail to adequately ask, much less clearly answer, three pressing questions that must be part of any adequate treatment of the problem, and they virtually ignore the thoughtful conservative alternatives to antiliberalism that do address these questions.
All is not well in America—or in the University. Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind offers a profound and compelling diagnosis of the common illness infecting them both and of the intimate connection between liberal education and liberty.
Voting always requires a weighing of consequences. The paramount question for the conscientious voter in 2016 is, “Which outcome among the feasible alternatives will promote the greatest good or prevent the greatest harm?”
If we want a just society, we must begin by recovering the right understanding of prudence. We must not commit the idealist’s error of making the best the enemy of the good.
The American Founders understood that good government requires judicious “rigging.” Such rigging is only “crooked” if one wrongly assumes that consent alone is a sufficient condition for justice.
In an era when Americans seek political leaders who display “authenticity” rather than prudence, a look back to the Federalist Papers makes clear the importance of a politics based on moderation rather than passion.
In most cases, Catholic social teaching provides the correct principles for resolving complex social and economic questions, not specific policy requirements. Nathan Shlueter reviews Sam Gregg’s new book in the voice of Paul Ryan.
The solution to the political and moral crisis of our time does not lie in abandoning liberalism or in defending Lockeanism. It rests in the recovery of natural law liberalism—a sustainable public philosophy that is true to reason, to nature, and to Christian belief.
Economic liberty is necessary for achieving the real, non-economic goods of individuals and associations in civil society. Not the collectivist “we” of government, but the many “we’s” of civil society are the true ground of a just, and good, society.
Libertarianism and conservatism are often lumped together, but there are fundamental differences between the two philosophies that make them incompatible.
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