Sarioz/Shutterstock.comFrance’s Psychodrama of 1968
Those who loathe and those who celebrate May 1968 agree it was a defining moment for Western democracy in its late modern form.
"Choses vues en mai," "Things Seen in May," by Jean Helion, 1968-69 (alamy.com)Responses
We ought to admit that the rudderless youth were not entirely mistaken in perceiving the blankness of the upbringing their elders had provided for them.
The disillusionment of 1968 created space for a richer diversity of serious thought.
“The events” served to fix in the popular mind the romantic notion that adolescence is the high point of any human existence.
Nihilism is as much of a threat as totalitarianism ever was.
Sir Roger to the Rescue
Where Did the Noble Lawyer Go?: Looking for Cicero in the Boardroom or on the Billboard
American actor Gregory Peck, as Atticus Finch, stands in a courtroom in a scene from director Robert Mulligan's film, 'To Kill A Mockingbird,' 1962. Actor Gregory Peck died June 12, 2003 at age 87 of natural causes in his Los Angeles, California home. (Photo by Universal Studios/Courtesy of Getty Images)Responses
I am an admirer of Steve Sheppard and of his scholarship. His book on the ethical obligations of lawyers is not just as a reminder of the necessity for lawyers to comply with lawyerly standards. More than formal compliance with the canons of ethics is needed today.[1] Serious consideration of the true moral purposes of…
With “Where did the Noble Lawyer Go?: Looking for Cicero in the Boardroom and on the Billboard,” Professor Stephen Sheppard has provided us with a provocative, as one expects from the editor of the three-volume Selected Works of Sir Edward Coke,[1] rumination on the decline of the legal profession. He contrasts the lawyer of today…
I am fascinated with Stephen Sheppard's essay on Cicero and the modern American lawyer. In a sense, he is calling me back to those ideals I held so dear as an entering one-L a long time ago. Cicero, it is not too strong to say this, is one of the reasons I went to law school.…
It is daunting to be read by genuine scholars whom one admires. The thoughtful comments, elaborations, and criticism of Stephen Grosby, Charles J. Reid, and Dick Helmholtz have surely given the reader much more wisdom and provocation than did my essay. Despite the many truths of my commentators’ criticism, Liberty Law Forum and its editor Richard…
The Institutions of American Liberty
I write of an American tradition of liberty rather than of Liberty as such. I write not of the liberty we would find behind a veil of ignorance nor of the undiluted, principled, liberty some moralists consume straight up. I focus instead on a heritage of liberty, forged out of the particular and peculiar experiences of American history, protected and internalized by a panoply of institutions, and that has produced an American temperament infused with affection and admiration for its unique inheritance. American liberty inspires gratitude and a spirit of improvement that is constructive rather than revolutionary. Unlike Liberty as…
Responses
Ted McAllister and the Liberty Law Forum at Liberty Fund are to be thanked for resurrecting a vitally important but seemingly forgotten, or, at least, neglected topic. The subject of McAllister’s essay is the American tradition of liberty, which he contrasts with perfect or abstract liberty. He asks two important questions: What is distinctive about…
“The Institutions of American Liberty” is a nicely written and, for the most part, compelling encomium to the tradition of American liberty and the institutions upon which it rests. The author of this piece, as so many following Tocqueville have observed, rightly notes that American history displays “a fervor of institution building by people who…
The Rev. Timothy Dwight (President of Yale, 1795-1817, leading Congregational and Federalist thinker, enemy of Thomas Jefferson), wrote about the three great good works: piety, benevolence, and self-government. Self-government meant the well ordering of one’s life so he could live as a free and responsible human being. If a person was well self-governed, he would…
Lamentably, I find myself in general agreement with the thoughtful commentaries on my essay by the three respondents, C. Bradley Thompson, Steven Grosby, and William Dennis. This is not to say that underneath this broad consensus there aren’t serious and enjoyable differences of philosophy that warrant sustained engagement. Taken as a whole, the body of…
Becoming Europe
This Liberty Law Talk is a discussion with Samuel Gregg about his most recent book, Becoming Europe: Economic Decline, Culture, and How America Can Avoid a European Future. Recent events in Cyprus, to say nothing of the economic stasis that envelopes much of Europe, highlight America's need to think deeply about the current trajectory of our fiscal and entitlements policies, among other weighty matters. Gregg's book, however, is not merely a rehashing of dire spending problems and bankrupting entitlements and the predictably poorer future this promises, but is a discussion of the social and cultural commitments that are required to…
