Contemporary Political Thought

So I know you haven’t missed me. But I’ve been really sick with a virus or food poisoning or something. Plus I went on a complicated road trip for the first time for a while, visiting Provo and Salt Lake City on behalf or our Ralph’s John Adams Center.

Here’s one point that I made that I haven’t posted so far: Americans are pretty confused about who we as free and relational beings. So you can see various countervailing trends. The families of the cognitive elite are getting more solid, and divorce rates are falling. But the families of the lower part of our middle class are getting more pathological, for, it’s important to emphasize, a variety of reasons. We can also see, the Porchers remind us, that the number of women opting out of “being productive” and choosing to stay at home and focus on “being domestic” is, in fact, slowly growing. And, due to high technology, more Americans who do “intellectual labor” can work from home, where they often find kids (like our friend Crunchy Mr. Dreher, who’s homeless and at home in St. Francisville). So, in a way, Utah (meaning Mormon) is a generation behind; there the main concern is that wives and mothers who don’t make money are being dissed by their more “sophisticated” sisters. But in, say, surburban Atlanta, I observe a sophisticated appreciation for women choosing freely what women so often used to have to do out of necessity. I would say more, but I only have a moment.

Here’s something to discuss: I’m teaching a course on CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL THOUGHT next semester. After a lot of thought and “dialogue,” I’ve come up with three topics: NIETZSCHE AND RELATIVISM, CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICAL THOUGHT, and LIBERAL EDUCATION vs. POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND TECHNOCRACY. Please suggest relevant readings.