Peter Lawler is Dana Professor of Government at Berry College in Georgia. He is the author or editor of a dozen books, including Postmodernism Rightly Understood, Stuck With Virtue, Aliens in America, and Homeless and at Home in America. He's also written over 200 articles and reviews for scholarly and popular publications. Lawler is executive editor of the acclaimed scholarly quarterly Perspectives on Political Science and a member of the President's Council on Bioethics. He was the 2007 winner of the Richard M. Weaver Prize in Scholarly Letters.

1. So the American understanding of science as technology—the modern understanding that flows from Bacon, Descartes, and that Cartesian Locke—contradicts the official view of our sophisticates that Darwin teaches the whole truth about nature and who we are. For the Darwinian, our species is, in the decisive respect, just like the others. Each member of […]

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Students, professors used to think, needed both guidance and those models of human greatness that could help them discover who they are and what to do. One irony, of course, was that when professors offered such guidance, students didn’t particularly need or want it.

They often came to college with characters already formed, already habituated to the practice of moral virtue.

In those days, the real experience of professors was often a kind of blithe irresponsibility that came with moral impotence. They could say what they wanted without the fear of doing all that much harm — or all that much good.

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We tend to think that because the great authors of the great books of the past must have been racists, sexists, and classists and, of couse, not as technologically advanced or as productive as we are, they have nothing real to say to us.

But through “postmodernism rightly understood,” there’s a better way of situating the “great books” in higher education today.

It doesn’t point to some uncritical veneration for the best that’s been thought and said in the past. But it does show why that thought might teach us what we need to know about our real greatness that’s very tough for us to learn in any other way.

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Nobody who’s looked at the stats about early voting in Georgia can doubt that, contrary to the official polls, Obama will probably carry the state. Almost half the people who’ll actually vote voted early, and the turnout is disproportionally African American. It’s been touching to see people patiently standing in line for four hours or more to have their voices heard.

Meanwhile, the Republicans haven’t taken early voting that seriously.

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We can learn from comparisons with the past only if we approach them with some — but not too much — irony. Here are some descriptions of past elections.

Each is spun in such a way as to heighten its relevance to the one going on right now and in order to produce some enjoyable controversy …

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The thoughtful and controversial scheme for mending—not ending—the Electoral College by fellow Britannica blogger James Pontuso caused me reflect on the institution’s characteristic strengths and weaknesses. Here with 10 …

1. A big reason third-party candidates don’t fare well in America is that they’re usually not really competitive for winning electors. Perot got 19% of the popular vote in 1992. But he didn’t win any electors because he didn’t win the plurality of the vote in any particular state.

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The standard of productivity is the basis of our increasingly meritocratic society. These are the best times ever to be young, smart, pretty, and industrious. But the pressure is on like never before to be young, smart, pretty, and industrious.

(Not that times were ever that good for the stupid, ugly, and lazy.)

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