Peter Lawler

So I’m writing an article about liberal eugenics and all that, and I’m actually using Rawls. Here’s (a very rough draft) snippet: American sophisticates usually speak of the significance of persons in terms of the theory of John Rawls. Rawls has become, many think, the political . . . . Continue Reading »

Marc Guerra’s CHRISTIANS AS POLITICAL ANIMALS is now available from ISI Books. You can get it on amazon for $17.79. That’s right! A magnificently produced and beautifully written hardback for that low price. It’s THE pomocon treatise on theology and modern democracy. We can . . . . Continue Reading »

PLEASE GIVE, about all of the above in Manhattan today, is the best movie of the year so far by far. It’s connection to SEX IN THE CITY is a little sex and a lot of City. And the sex portrayed is pathetic—a fat guy and a hugely (emotionally) wounded fading beauty committing adultery . . . . Continue Reading »

So that’s the first of what will probably turn out to be a large number of quotable lines from the very funny GET HIM TO THE GREEK. As far as I know, this is the first really enjoyable movie of the year (CITY ISLAND is a decent but distant second). It would be easy and right to say it’s . . . . Continue Reading »

Even or especially ordinary people know that when celebrities possess a singular artistic greatness, their lives are not for envy or imitation. Two of the most revered and beloved American celebrities were Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson. Certainly their deaths plunged us into grief in a way . . . . Continue Reading »

Celebrities, generally speaking, are fairly irresponsible or selfish—out for themselves. They have less reason than us not to be. They have rare opportunities to do whatever they want whenever they want. And not having been raised (as aristocrats once were) for their privileged lives, they . . . . Continue Reading »

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 »

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 »

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 »