Peter Lawler
Professor of Government, Berry College
Peter Lawler is Dana Professor of Government and former chair of the department of Government and International Studies at Berry College. He serves as executive editor of the journal Perspectives on Political Science, and has been chair of the politics and literature section of the American Political Science Association. He also served on the editorial board of the new bilingual critical edition of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, and serves on the editorial boards of several journals. He has written or edited fifteen books and over 200 articles and chapters in a wide variety of venues. He was the 2007 winner of the Weaver Prize in Scholarly Letters.rnrnLawler served on President Bush's Council on Bioethics from 2004 – 09. His most recent book, Modern and American Dignity, is available from ISI Books.rnrnFollow him on Twitter @peteralawler.
Larry Arnhart, the leading Darwinian conservative, wonders whether I’ve converted to his faith, doubtless due to his efforts at sharing the good, evolutionary news. Larry is, of course, not an […]
So I’m glad Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin gets to keep his job. The RECALL, for one thing, is a very ill-considered progressive reform (originating, of course, in La Follette’s […]
Some Darwinians, such as Francis Fukuyama, Larry Arnhart, Jonathan Haidt and the late James Q. Wilson, openly and proudly acknowledge that the results of their research point in a moderately […]
BIG THINKER Daniel Honan reminds us that Mayor Bloomberg is not in any obvious sense an ideologue. He’s just about using the power of government to curtail behavior that costs the […]
The nonpartisan yet aggressively reforming mayor of NYC wants to ban sugary drinks of more than 16 ounces from being sold in various public establishments. We Southerners note that the ban would […]
Here’s an article by Thomas C. Terry getting a lot of attention on how openly our professors disparage Mormons in ways they would be ashamed to talk about members of […]
I agree with the sagacious Carl Scott that the conservative bloggers have gone too far in their attacks on our president’s Occidental professor Roger Boesche. Obama called Boesche his favorite professor at Occidental, and he […]
Here’s a quite engaging and very sensible interview with Bennett Foddy on the possibilities for and the ethics of life extension. I would put this philosophy professor in the moderately […]
In some ways, the brilliant Thiel might be our instructive Cartesian today, because he has no democratic illusions about the Cartesian “I.”
Believe it or not, this post continues with my theme of Cartesian America. As I explained, the Cartesian/Lockean American understands science basically to be technology. Its point is to make […]
So I’m sorry for yet another relatively pointy-headed post. I’m still thinking about the twin pillars of our modern, scientific self-understanding—Descartes and Darwin. For today, I’m thinking about how the […]
So I’ve been thinking a lot about modern progress over the last couple of days. One reason, of course, is that the president explained to us that his view on […]
So of all the sundry commentaries on young Obama as literary man, the one that’s impressed me the most (except, of course, for my own) is the one by the […]
Vanity Fair has published some revealing letters from the young student Barack Obama to his girlfriend Alex McNear. Some conservatives have been mocking the heck out of them as evidence […]
Students at a small, liberal-arts college complained to Mitt Romney about borrowing money to pursue a college major that doesn’t lead to a job. He replied, sensibly, that some majors have […]
So the excellent expert on public opinion Frank Luntz gives us five myths about conservatives. It goes without saying there are many kinds of conservatives, and all Luntz can really talk […]
The most active, often eloquent, and judgmental of our ex-presidents—Jimmy Carter—explains why he would be comfortable with President Mitt Romney: “I’d rather have a Democrat but I would be comfortable,” […]
Sherry Turkle is at it again in the NYT. When we expect more from technology, her story goes, we inevitably expect less from ourselves. In a high-tech world, we flee […]
David Brooks has written a trendy column about the crisis in confidence in higher education. Expensive colleges, shaken by the study Academically Adrift that shows that too many students don’t […]
So the final issue in my class in PUBLIC POLICY this semester is HIGHER EDUCATION. Here are some controversial propositions generated from papers I’ve just read from the class. I’m […]
Thomas K. Lindsay, quite an erudite and distinguished expert, applauds the decision of post-secondary public technical schools in Texas to evaluate institutions and faculty according to how many students have […]
Well, he was, according to Jonathan Cohn in the New Republic: What’s more important, for the rest of us, is that Obama corrected and clarified the misstatement one day later. Striking […]
Adam Wolfson calls our attention to an important new book by political theorist John Tomasi. Against partisans on both sides, Tomasi claims that Free Market Fairness is hardly an oxymoron. […]
Big thinker Will Willkinson summarizes and analyzes a summary of a study by Scott Eidelman and others that’s hurt a lot of conservative feelings. The big point seems to be that when […]
It looks like the Supreme Court may well declare unconstitutional at least the “mandate” part of “Obamacare.” This astute observer explains why Justice Kennedy’s understanding of the relevant issue makes […]
One of our most able and informed scientific journalists, William Saletan, astutely summarizes the pioneering contribution of the dissident evolutionary psychologist Jonathan Haidt: Social conservatives see welfare and feminism as threats […]
Here is the comment of astute conservative commentator Yuval Levin on the recent mega-gaffe by Romney’s communications director: If, say, yesterday, you had asked me what kind of statement by a […]
It appears that Santorum’s time as a serious contender for the Republican nomination is about to come to a close. It’s true that the experts (including me) have wrongly counted […]
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR reports on the fast-developing tend for adult children to continue to live with their parents well into their twenties and even thirties. Maybe 30% of so-called “young adults” […]
So we’ve basically completed our two-year series of conferences, publications, and such at Berry College funded by a grant from the Science of Virtues project at the University of Chicago. […]