Thanks no doubt to all your prayers and crossed fingers, we got the grant from the Science of Virtues people at the University of Chicago. Turns out they weren’t offended by that misleading first sentence or my high-risk call not to use power point. It could be they were seduced by the schmoozing charm of America’s leading theologian.
Our first conference, to be held next fall, will be on what the Thomas Jefferson of today would regard as our trinity of scientists—Descartes, Locke, and Darwin. The Americans, as Tocqueville says, manage to be Cartesians without ever having read a word of Descartes. Locke was probably the best Cartesian ever, and he certainly is the key to America. And one interpretation of our history is our growing inability to keep Locke in a Locke box. Culturally, of course, our country is divided into whole- hog Darwin affirmers and faith-based Darwin deniers. But it goes without saying that it’s unlikely that the scientist Darwin is either completely wrong or completely right. He certainly not as right as the popularizing scientists called the new atheists say. Darwinianism is certainly social, but not at all in the way the Social Darwinists suggest. Properly understood, Darwinism is one antidote to the extremism of our hyper-Lockean or libertarian autonomy freaks. That’s not to agree with Darwinian Larry Arnhart that any true conservative could be simply or mainly a Darwinian.
