Fathers and Sons: The Principle of Love in Turgenev’s Liberalism
The importance of place is often neglected by liberal theorists, with the assumption that liberal ideas are understood and articulated in the same manner from one society…
The Russian Empire Timeline (1721-1917)
1682 Brothers Ivan V and Peter I crowned czars 1695-1700 War with Ottoman Empire 1696 Ivan V dies, leaving Peter I as the sole czar 1696-97 Peter’s…
The Challenges that Confront the United States
With the inauguration of the new president approaching, I thought it might be worthwhile to review some of the challenges that the new administration will confront.[1] Although…
Natural Law
Natural law is both a moral and legal theory that posits the existence of a law whose content is set by nature and therefore has validity everywhere.…
Cosmopolitanism: Citizens Without States?
While our political and cultural elites debate about what to do with the millions of illegal immigrants in this country, it may be worthwhile to pause for…
The Limits of Identity Politics
After the election, a student came into my office and asked me, “What is my major good for?”[1] The quote perfectly captured the post-election state of my…
The American Political System: What We Can Be Thankful For
With another presidential election when there was no mandate to do anything, one would be excused to be cynical and jaded about the state of our politics.…
Obama’s Paradoxical Legacy
As we are about to elect a new president, President Obama only has a few months left in office. What will his legacy be? Although it is…
Tocqueville, Weber, and Democracy: The Condition of Equality and the Possibility of Charisma in America
Both Tocqueville and Weber confronted the injection of mass suffrage into the liberal democratic polity with trepidation and caution but for different reasons: for Tocqueville, democracy produced…
A Brief Account of Liberalism
When we speak of democracy today, we really mean liberal democracy, a product of the Enlightenment and the philosophy of liberalism. The success of the modern sciences…
The Recovery of Science in Eric Voegelin’s Thought
The debate about scientism (also referred to as positivism or scientific reductionism) is an argument over the validity of applying the methods of the natural sciences to…
The Alcibiades of Our Time
We now have two presidential candidates each appealing to their bases with head-fakes to an ever-diminishing center. Donald Trump has tapped into the political, economic, and cultural…