Bøger af Peter Augustine Lawler

When political debates devolve, as they often do these days, into a contest between big-government progressivism and natural rights individualism, Americans tend to appeal to the self-evident truths inscribed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. But Peter Lawler and Richard Reinsch remind us that these truths understood in the abstract are untethered from a prior, unwritten constitution presupposed by the Framersone found in culture, customs, traditions, experiences, and beliefs. A Constitution in Full is Lawler and Reinschs attempt to return this critical context to US constitutionalismto recover a political sense of individualism in relation to country, family, religious community, and nature.Power, the authors suggest, is a public trust, not a form of obedience to either majoritarian suppression of particular liberties or the endless rights-claims lodged by autonomous individuals against society. Instead, power is ordered to the demands of a shared political enterprise that emerges from mans social nature. Building on political insights from Alexis de Tocqueville, Orestes Brownson, John Courtney Murray, and others Lawler and Reinsch seek to restore the relational personthe individual grounded in family, work, faith, and communityto a central place in our understanding of republican constitutionalism. Their work promotes the ongoing development of constitutional self-government rooted in our historical, legal, and religious foundations.The shared middle-class values that once united almost all Americans as well as any confidence in democratic deliberation or political liberty are rapidly atrophying. This book aims to rebuild this confidence by helping us think seriously about the complex interplay between political and economic liberties and the relational life of creatures and citizens.

In these learned and scintillating essays, Peter Augustine Lawler confirms his status as our leading conservative Catholic American dissident. Against the technocratic and libertarian distortions of our humanity, he defends the the free and relational person who is meant to work and love, pray and contemplate and to govern himself. With the help of Plato, Tocqueville, and Solzhenitsyn he gives us the language and categories to once again experience our humanity in all its amplitude. Like his aforementioned great predecessors, he is a "friendly critic" of democratic excesses and a partisan of the "one true progress" toward wisdom, virtue, and self-mastery. With wit and penetration, Lawler attacks techno-imperialism and the mania for "diversity" in higher education today without ever denying the legitimacy of technology and true intellectual diversity within their spheres. His book thus embodies the balanced and humanizing spirit of liberal education, properly understood. Daniel J. Mahoney, Augustine Chair In Distinguished Scholarship, Assumption College

"Allergic to Crazy features a stunningly diverse array of brief reflections by one of America's leading public intellectuals. Each of these short, pointed, and witty essays applies the wisdom of postmodern conservatism to the issues that rightly occupy so much of life these days. Want to know a bit more about how to watch films, think about TV from American Idol to Mad Men, reflect on the charm of eating at Waffle House, understand why we're all so obsessed with celebrities, muse for a moment or more on why happiness is such a problem for us, be reminded why in this era of biotechnology we actually believe we can be more than human, and be attentive to the real significance of what we remember on Christmas and 9/11? Then this is the self-help book for you. And of course there is much, much more. These reflections are for you no matter what you believe right now. Many of them were written for a basically unfriendly audience, for left libertarian techno-enthusiasts who are contemptuous of religion, tradition, and all that. They have an evangelical spirit; they were written to gently enlarge hearts. Some of these little essays were written, in a way, to preach to the converted, to explain to conservatives why they should lighten up, be less angry, and be more open to the good in the world around them. You can be sure you'll find much that provokes you, and much to share with your friends"--

This work seeks to attain a true understanding of the postmodern predicament. Peter Lawler reflects on the flaws of postmodern thought, the futility of pragmatism, and the spiritual emptiness of existentialism. He examines postmodernism by interpreting the writings of five American authors.