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.
Here’s a pithy, gracious, thoughtful, and fairly accurate review of my most recent book by another conservative. In the spirit of shameless self-promotion, I’ll give you a generous taste: In this […]
I’ve been asked whether I should reconsider my recent praise of AMERICAN IDOL as an admirably and characteristically American mixture of wisdom and consent. Although I can’t really speak as […]
So here’s an engaging and most instructive lecture by the legendary Harvey Mansfield, probably the only member of the government faculty at Harvard who votes Republican. Mansfield, of course, is famous […]
So one of our BIG THINKERS, Daniel Honan, gave us a fine introduction to one of the biggest ideas around, THE END OF HISTORY. Daniel is right that the idea […]
So here’s a rare treat: The leading historian of our Founding (Gordon Wood) receives a thoughtful and sympathetic–but indirectly somewhat critical–review by our leading political scientific student of our Founding (James […]
The always fascinating English philosophic intellectual John Gray has written a book about the various ways most of the leading philosophers and scientists of the late 19th and early 20th […]
Here’s an exaggerated account of the slide of our professors into the proletariat given by The Nation, our leading journal on the left. Let me repeat what I’ve said before: Good […]
So here’s a ferocious attack on new atheist Sam Harris from the Nation, our country’s leading leftist publication. The conclusion: Harris is oblivious to this moral crisis [of selfish individualism]. His self-confidence […]
I thought I’d offer some random observations… First off, I agree with my fellow BIG THINKER Kris that it’s most unreasonable to fear terrorist retaliation. That’s not only because the odds […]
A questionable (but honest and penetrating) part of HIGHER EDUCATION? by Hacker and Dreifus is its assertive case against TENURE for professors. I have little doubt that tenure is toast. […]
Yuval Levin, the most astute and imaginative of the Republican public intellectuals, has noticed that Democrats have stopped being progressive. That means, from one view, they no longer believe that History (with […]
Another fine feature of REAL EDUCATION by Hacker and Dreifus is its sensitive and altogether unideological treatment of professors who become legends. Among the legends they mention, one is still […]
So the third suggestion of Hacker and Dreifus in HIGHER EDUCATION concerns avoiding PLAGIARISM. Plagiarism is easier than ever these days–thanks to the abundant resources on the web. And the ingenuity […]
So the most honest and penetrating book I’ve read about American higher education in a long time is HIGHER EDUCATION: HOW COLLEGES ARE WASTING OUR MONEY AND FAILING OUR KIDS–AND […]
A (Gallup) study shows that only 35% of our independents now approve of the work our president is doing. There are a variety of reasons for that. But here’s the one that […]
These days, it seems like the reasonable promise of biotechnology has become INDEFINITE LONGEVITY. Actually, that goal was first articulated by the French enlightenment thinker Condorcet. In order for our […]
So I’ve taken a break from blogging for a while for several reasons. I was at Mercer University in Macon, GA for a great conference on Alexis de Tocqueville. I gave the […]
So I’ve taken a break from blogging for a while for several reasons. I was at Mercer University at Macon for a great conference on Alexis de Tocqueville. I gave […]
Maybe the most provocative speaker (although not so much, maybe, to BIG THINK readers) at our conference at Berry next Friday and Saturday will be RONALD BAILEY–the libertarian proponent of […]
I don’t know if this is such an appropriate post for Sunday morning. A study from Northwestern shows that people who regularly attend religious services are 50% more likely to become […]
So, yes, I watch American Idol–not obsessively or religiously, but whenever I can. It’s a conservative show. It promotes a meritocracy based on singing excellence, and that excellence is not […]
This expert explains why in a very detailed and most plausible way. Here’s one taste: Is the United States more prone to higher levels of anxiety than other nations? Put simply, […]
It’s no secret that most of our colleges that give lip service to “liberal education” don’t deliver it, and what they do teach exaggerates—not moderates—the undignified confusion of our time. […]
That’s what this study shows. Actually, the study is pretty modest–not to mention Finnish. But the expert doesn’t hesitate to draw global implications from it. One conclusion: The Left is more […]
So you may have noticed I haven’t posted on any movies lately. That’s because I haven’t seen any I liked or hated enough to talk about. I did just see […]
I have to admit I’ve been warming up a bit to the out-there techno-optimism of Ray Kurzweil displayed so prominently on BIG THINK. He (like lots of people) has been […]
Here’s an artice that explains well why Congress should get the national government out of the radio and TV business. A taste: NPR’s defenders would respond indignantly to this argument by […]
That’s the question Bill Schneider asks in his somewhat unfriendly but useful article. He surveys the likely 2012 Republican presidential candidates with the support of Tea Partiers in mind. The […]
I’ve gotten a couple of very thoughtful emails about my dissing the idea of practical altruism, including a very long one. Basically: They’re accusing of me of being a KANTIAN! […]
So I know you’ve missed me: Well, I’ve been busy hearing about various scientific accounts of virtue at the meeting of the recipients of the University of Chicago Science of […]