17 January 2006
Claremont again
The Claremont Review of books is indispensable. As I stated earlier, I disagree with many of their socially conservative views. On balance, however, it explores books and topics that otherwise I would miss. The editors do not limit themselves to the usual right-wing echo chamber ideas either. In the current issue, once you get past the opening editorial, explores the battle over whether social conservatives or libertarian republicans can lay claim to Barry Goldwater. A review urges social conservatives to consider the possible alternatives before committing to unthinking opposition of a Giuliani presidential bid.
I first read Angelo Codevilla in the Claremont Review in 2003, and he has consistently been the clearest and sanest voice in opposition to the administration’s ongoing Monty Python skit that passes for foreign policy. I am writing a quick review of Mr. Codevilla’s 2005 book No Victory, No Peace
that I will post soon. The current essay calls the administration to task being clueless as usual, and for consistently picking the wrong side in Iraq’s ongoing civil war.
There is an interesting back and forth between Harry Jaffa and Ralph Rossum over degrees of originalism in constitutional interpretation. The also disagree over the place for a natural law reading of the constitution, such as whether the Declaration of Independence has any bearing on the matter. Somewhere eventually I’ll summarize my own understanding of the topic, based on spending the past six months rereading bits of Hobbes, Locke, and Machiavelli, followed by The Spirit of the Laws by Montesquieu, followed by Madison’s notes of the Constitutional Convention, the two Library of America volumes on the subject, and the Federalist. Suffice it to say whatever the accomplishments of the proponent, the idea that the Declaration has anything but an ancillary role, if any, in understanding what the founders were doing is silly. They were politicians, haggling over their interests, not deities walking the earth. The only political argument the founders dealt with that is settled is slavery, and that took a Civil War and hundreds of thousands of lives. The rest is pure politics, up to and including the Supreme Court. Any other view is utopian and dangerous.
There is a review of a book by a noted theologian, Interpreting the Bible and the Constitution, which sounds fascinating. Note that the editors examine the book despite the reviewer ultimately disagreeing with the author:
One may perhaps attribute Pelikan’s suspicion of originalism, and his amenability to the idea of developmental interpretation, to his long and fruitful study of Christian history. The Bible, after all, is vastly more complex than the Constitution. Its internal narratives, its lyrical poetry and thundering prophecy, its layers upon layers of meaning, all serve to distance it from the Constitution. If the latter expresses the structure of government resulting from the reflection and choice of ‘we the people’, the former attempts to bear faithful witness to man’s encounter with an ineffably mysterious reality. Moreover, as Pelikan acknowledges, the Christian scripture are widely thought to consist of both letter and spirit, law and gospel, whereas the letter of the Constitution is incomplete without being animated by the spirit of the Declaration.
… Alternatively, the spirit of those of us now alive could animate the Constitution. That is the central argument: which has precedence, dead guys with wigs or modern a modern understanding of American rights?
A reviewer from the Naval War College explores a modern interpretation of responsibility:
The four cardinal virtues of modernity turn out to be ‘niceness’, tolerance, industry, and responsibility. Blitz’s respectful yet ultimately merciless probing of the contemporary manifestations of these various qualities rings many bells; but it is also apt to leave readers with the depressing feeling that modern virtue is a long way from the real thing, and to make them wonder whether such thin gruel can really sustain liberal democratic societies in the face of the many challenges confronting them today.
As the Love and Logic people might say, whose problem is it if the reviewer thinks the gruel is too thin? That’s right; THE REVIEWER has the problem - someone else upset the world doesn’t explain itself clearly.
A review of Renaissance art explains how Roman artists felt free to use Greek myths to prove their own points freely, often using the Greek Gods in ways that would horrify Greeks. Included is this stunning sentence:
The ancient Greeks looked to their myths for an explanation of why the world was as it was; why justice came slowly if ever; why humans died; why people so often got things wrong.
Can you imagine the lack of self-knowledge it takes to chastise those silly Greeks for their crazy, improbable beliefs: are we were any different, except alive?
The closing shot takes issue with the President promoting democracy for its own sake.
The President believes and often states, as if it were a self-evident truth, that, “Democracies are peaceful countries.”
It is heartening to read anything sane regarding our foreign policy, especially in a conservative publication. Mark Helprin goes on to note various democracies that have instigated or participated in wars.
I first read Angelo Codevilla in the Claremont Review in 2003, and he has consistently been the clearest and sanest voice in opposition to the administration’s ongoing Monty Python skit that passes for foreign policy. I am writing a quick review of Mr. Codevilla’s 2005 book No Victory, No Peace
that I will post soon. The current essay calls the administration to task being clueless as usual, and for consistently picking the wrong side in Iraq’s ongoing civil war.There is an interesting back and forth between Harry Jaffa and Ralph Rossum over degrees of originalism in constitutional interpretation. The also disagree over the place for a natural law reading of the constitution, such as whether the Declaration of Independence has any bearing on the matter. Somewhere eventually I’ll summarize my own understanding of the topic, based on spending the past six months rereading bits of Hobbes, Locke, and Machiavelli, followed by The Spirit of the Laws by Montesquieu, followed by Madison’s notes of the Constitutional Convention, the two Library of America volumes on the subject, and the Federalist. Suffice it to say whatever the accomplishments of the proponent, the idea that the Declaration has anything but an ancillary role, if any, in understanding what the founders were doing is silly. They were politicians, haggling over their interests, not deities walking the earth. The only political argument the founders dealt with that is settled is slavery, and that took a Civil War and hundreds of thousands of lives. The rest is pure politics, up to and including the Supreme Court. Any other view is utopian and dangerous.
There is a review of a book by a noted theologian, Interpreting the Bible and the Constitution, which sounds fascinating. Note that the editors examine the book despite the reviewer ultimately disagreeing with the author:
One may perhaps attribute Pelikan’s suspicion of originalism, and his amenability to the idea of developmental interpretation, to his long and fruitful study of Christian history. The Bible, after all, is vastly more complex than the Constitution. Its internal narratives, its lyrical poetry and thundering prophecy, its layers upon layers of meaning, all serve to distance it from the Constitution. If the latter expresses the structure of government resulting from the reflection and choice of ‘we the people’, the former attempts to bear faithful witness to man’s encounter with an ineffably mysterious reality. Moreover, as Pelikan acknowledges, the Christian scripture are widely thought to consist of both letter and spirit, law and gospel, whereas the letter of the Constitution is incomplete without being animated by the spirit of the Declaration.
… Alternatively, the spirit of those of us now alive could animate the Constitution. That is the central argument: which has precedence, dead guys with wigs or modern a modern understanding of American rights?
A reviewer from the Naval War College explores a modern interpretation of responsibility:
The four cardinal virtues of modernity turn out to be ‘niceness’, tolerance, industry, and responsibility. Blitz’s respectful yet ultimately merciless probing of the contemporary manifestations of these various qualities rings many bells; but it is also apt to leave readers with the depressing feeling that modern virtue is a long way from the real thing, and to make them wonder whether such thin gruel can really sustain liberal democratic societies in the face of the many challenges confronting them today.
As the Love and Logic people might say, whose problem is it if the reviewer thinks the gruel is too thin? That’s right; THE REVIEWER has the problem - someone else upset the world doesn’t explain itself clearly.
A review of Renaissance art explains how Roman artists felt free to use Greek myths to prove their own points freely, often using the Greek Gods in ways that would horrify Greeks. Included is this stunning sentence:
The ancient Greeks looked to their myths for an explanation of why the world was as it was; why justice came slowly if ever; why humans died; why people so often got things wrong.
Can you imagine the lack of self-knowledge it takes to chastise those silly Greeks for their crazy, improbable beliefs: are we were any different, except alive?
The closing shot takes issue with the President promoting democracy for its own sake.
The President believes and often states, as if it were a self-evident truth, that, “Democracies are peaceful countries.”
It is heartening to read anything sane regarding our foreign policy, especially in a conservative publication. Mark Helprin goes on to note various democracies that have instigated or participated in wars.
