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.
This will be my last post on conservative education at the ISI Honors Program. A couple of people have written me (doubtless Canadians) complaining that I distorted the thought of the […]
So last night at the ISI honors program (after a long and luxurious dinner at a great restaurant), we actually had a speaker from CANADA—a brilliant professor of political philosophy […]
So today at the ISI honors program we were graced with a beautiful presentation on liberty in American poetry and song. The classy and distinguished presenter asked the students to […]
So I’m spending the week speaking at and otherwise participating in the national honors program of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute–a conservative educational foundation. The students are spectacularly impressive. They come from […]
An authoritative study shows that the Republicans have recovered from their 2006-08 swoon and have now moved even with the Democrats again. That doesn’t mean they have moved ahead. Party identification […]
1. So my post on Brooks and death got (for me) big ratings and a lot of fine criticisms–both here on BIG THINK and elsewhere. 2. I pretty much agree […]
David Brooks has a very thoughtful column on the fact that a lot of soaring health care costs have to do using all means available to keep very sick people […]
Now that the EMMY NOMINATIONS are out, I can give my awards for the best CONVERSATIONAL TV shows. My standard, of course, finds its peaks of excellence in conversational films […]
“The central issue,” James Capretta writes, “in financing Social Security…is the long-term fertility rate.” If it were reasonable to hope we could soon be anywhere close to returning to Baby […]
SUPER 8 is the only movie I’ve seen this year that’s worth thinking about. I haven’t, of course, seen that many. Posts on movies now in theatres on blogs by […]
Let me share with you an alarming study that came to my attention a couple of years ago. Americans are now drinking more BOTTLED WATER than BEER. Ther persons who reported […]
Well, I’m really not. But a lot of BIG THINKERS must be, because we have nary a post so far talking up THE AMERICAN HOLIDAY. So HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY! […]
According to this expert, that president’s big advantage is that he’s not attracted primary opposition in his bid for re-election. The left may be dissatisfied with him for not showiing […]
Consider the big effort being made to engineer equality at a particular Swedish pre-school. Here’s the meat of the article: Breaking down gender roles is a core mission in the […]
Huntsman is now the Republican darling of the liberal press. The truth is his speech before the Statue of Liberty (which echoed Reagan in terms of location) was shallow and […]
Now that summer’s here and the time is right to turn to reruns of various kinds, I’m trying to spend the ample time I have as a tenured professor watching […]
So maybe it’s time to come down from space and say some obvious things about the campaign for the Republican nomination. The first is that Sarah Palin has been defeated […]
1. So my post on NASA provoked a variety of most thoughtful responses. The ones by Brendan were the most detailed and philosophic, but they were all worthwhile. 2. Their […]
Our famous novelist Jonathan Franzen gave quite the challenging commencement address at Kenyon. Here’s what he said about technology and eros: Let me toss out the idea that, as our […]
One of the most disappointing moments in an otherwise fairly encouraging Republican New Hampshire debate was that none of the seven candidates would continue federal funding for human space flight. […]
Read about it here. The movement for a generation or so has been toward a lifestyle of increasing freedom on our college campuses. That’s meant “no rules” (beyond those connected with health-and-safety, and […]
Mr. Gates has forcefully reminded our allies that, to be credible politically, they have to pay for their own defense. Here’s a taste of the NYT article on his fine […]
A renegade teacher tells the students at the school straight out, much earlier than they were supposed to know, what their purpose in life is, claiming that knowing what one’s life is […]
So it might not be so good for ratings to be doing a series on a movie that tanked at the box office. But here’s some more on NEVER LET […]
Never Let Me Go is one of the most thoughtful pieces of science fiction ever. The film, directed by Mark Romanek, is, of course, based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. […]
So my previous post on Walmart being change that’s, on balance, bad for us as social beings was one of my most popular and, apparently, least controversial. That’s because many so-called […]
1. I was glad to learn from BIG THINKER Daniel that Walmart has become a catalyst for change on the Green or environmental front. That’s good news, because what that corporation’s brains […]
Is there a kind of noble consistency in insisting the rich pay more taxes and not be entitled to government payments they don't need?
Looking to past elections to predict the outcome of one soon to come doesn’t usually work that well. Back in October 2008, I looked to eight past elections to try […]
These are some very elementary observations: It wasn’t long before all responsible observers came to agree with ME that the NY-26 result (despite the quirky details) is one piece of […]