New at VoegelinView This Week (Sept 16, 2013) NEW “Persons are the Only Stuff of Politics” We welcome Professor Tilo Schabert to VoegelinView. He puts forth what, to many, seems like a radical thesis, that political scientists should examine politicians rather than constitutional forms: “Any régime as described institutionally is a fiction,” and today’s emphasis on forms began with Cicero, “Seen from a historical perspective, Cicero performed the “empiricist turn,” as I would call it, by which the theory of governmental forms in political science is marked until today.” Read this week part 1 of “The True Form of Governments.” Tocqueville and the Gap between “Is” and “Ought” Professor Joseph Hebert continues his examination of Tocqueville, including the art of the legislator, the avoidance of democratic dangers: “. . . in ‘democratic times,’ the mind is tempted to regard even natural and beneficial inequalities as offenses against justice;” and the embracing of civic responsibility: “. . . the average citizen will come far closer to virtue through the experience of self-government and the doctrines of faith than through the power of abstract reason alone.” Read this week part 2 of “The Limits of Modern Cosmopolitanism.” The Rome of the Ancestors is Finished For a change of pace we turn to Eric Voegelin’s analysis of the religious milieu in Rome at the beginning of the Christian era: “Rome was the Rome of its gods into every detail of daily routine; to participate experientially in the spiritual revolution of philosophy would have implied the recognition that the Rome of the ancestors was finished.” Read this week part 1 of “Rome and Christianity.” Neglecting the Experience Itself We welcome Max Arnott’s return to VoegelinView for a fifth season of bemused reflections. This week he looks at a peculiar accomplishment that suggests there are limits on the recounting of experience: “After all, seventeen hundred words, for example, on the quality of light in Sam Spade’s office in the first chapter would slow the Maltese Falcon to the point where people would throw it across the room.” Enjoy “The Man Who Read The O.E.D.” To see what has already appeared at VoegelinView, browse Our Past Headlines on the Inside “As if it were us the day were hauling . . .” Poetry Editor Thomas D’Evelyn offers us this week a translation of a poem by the contemporary French poet, Paul de Roux, who catches, knowingly or not, the acute alienation of the contemporary man who tries to ground his existence in himself. Read in Poetry this week “The Day’s Labor.” El Camino de Santiago We welcome Elizabeth-Jane McGuire to VoegelinView. She reviews for us a memoir on a subject unfamiliar to most, yet attractive and compelling once described, the modern-day pilgrimage: “Particularly in an era when most people travel for entertainment, what makes walking the Camino different? And, even more to the point, do you have to know why before you start out?” Enjoy this week in Book Reviews“The Way of the Stars.” “That winter is washed away” Poetry Editor Thomas D’Evelyn has once again chosen a poem from the pen of the 20th century American poet Wallace Stevens. In this poem Stevens looks at Homer’s Odyssey and imagines Penelope’s thoughts while she awaits the return of Ulysses. Read in Poetry this week “The World as Meditation.” Community and the Ethics of Responsibility William French concludes his extended review of Glenn Moots’ Politics Reformed by highlighting the spiritual foundations of political society: “Religious community takes . . . priority over citizenship, and sustainable political order requires communities . . . to supply civil society with that which society cannot itself supply: love.” Today read part 2 of “The Mystery of God’s Survival in Political Order.” (And part 1 may be read HERE.) The URL is voegelinview
Posted on: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 11:32:37 +0000
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