Diagnosing Modernity

a book review by Sarah Shea

Lee Trepainier & Steven F. McGuire. Eric Voegelin and the Continental Tradition: Explorations in Modern Political Thought. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2011. Hardbound, 272 pp, $44.95.

“I am still waiting for a philosophical physician in the exceptional sense of that word–one who has to pursue the problem of the total health of a people, time, race, or of humanity–to muster the courage to push my suspicion to its limits and to risk the proposition: what was at stake in all philosophizing hitherto was not at all “truth” but something else–let us say, health, future, growth, power, life.”

–Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science.

Eric Voegelin embodied Nietzsche's "philosophical physician" to an exceptional degree. He was preoccupied with the spiritual and intellectual condition of Western culture since the Enlightenment. This is best illustrated by his studies of modern epistemology and its failure to take into account experience and its symbolism.

Voegelin's diagnoses are derived from his open reading of philosophical texts. This openness reflects his understanding of reality–what he called "participatory." This meant immersing himself in relationships to God and man, world and society.

Voegelin acquired the learning and spiritual maturity to see how ideologies corrupt individuals and consequently, society.

A Spirited Defense: Our Liberal Order's Conservative Foundations

a book review by Trevor Shelley

Daniel J. Mahoney. The Conservative Foundations of the Liberal Order:Defending Democracy against Its Modern Enemies and Immoderate Friends. Wilmington: ISI Books, 2010. 208 pp. Hardcover. $29.95.

In The Spirit of Liberalism (1978), Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., distinguished between “modern conservatism that accompanies liberalism” and “classical conservatism that preceded liberalism.”  Mansfield told us, “modern conservatism was born in rebellion against liberalism.” 

However, this rebellious spirit has been diminished–modern conservatism has grown rather comfortable in the position of “liberalism’s weak sister, nagging at the vices of its elder brother and at the same time absorbing fraternal hostility and serving as the butt of funny jokes.” 

This sibling bond and rivalry recalls just how close modern conservatism and liberalism are; however, Mansfield argues that in becoming too close for comfort, or altogether comfortable in their closeness, a potentially fruitful rivalry has lost its edge: liberalism has become “too dispirited” and conservatism has given up the difficult task of invigorating and ennobling it.

Remembering that Forests are
Made of Trees

a book review by Rodolfo Hernandez

George E. Connor and Christopher W. Hammons, editors.The Constitutionalism of American States. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. 2008. Hardbound, 848 pp. $74.95.

With a Starbucks or Walmart on almost every corner the temptation is to think little has changed when one crosses a state line, other than, perhaps, a lower sales tax.  It is only when state governments re-assert their police power on issues involving health, safety, and morals that one remembers Americans are dual citizens in a system of government that is “partly federal and partly national.”

Some work has been done by political scientists in comparing the institutional arrangements of states and how such things as mode of judicial selection and term limits affect outcomes.  What seems to be missing in some of this work is an understanding of the particulars of time and place that can be lost in aggregate work.

An Entertainment for the Soul

a book review by Dennis Wm Moran

Barry Cooper and Jodi Bruhn, editors.Voegelin Recollected: Conversations on a Life. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press. 2008. Hardbound, 292 pp. $49.95.

Conversations is a telling account of the life of Eric Voegelin, who was and remains one of the most intriguing and illuminating thinkers of the twentieth century.

Barry Cooper and Jodi Bruhn certainly understate their accomplishment when they say the book is a collection of conversations.

The authors have given the reader an exquisitely rendered life of Professor Voegelin through the crafted use of hours of interviews with former students, colleagues, and friends in Europe and the United States. In fact, the account of Voegelin we have here offers more detail and drama than any existing intellectual biography to date.