In “The Philosophical Meaning of Religious Exercise,” I argue that religion should be understood primarily as a characteristic form of human activity directed towards a being (or beings) whose nature transcends that of human nature. The paradigm of religious exercise therefore is worship, defined broadly as human activity directed towards the transcendent. Rejection of this […]
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“What to a Slave is the Fourth of July?”
Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens : He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept […]
Our Promissory Note
Living downstream from the American founding, we are heirs today to what Martin Luther King, Jr., in his most famous speech, referred to as the “promissory note” implicit in our Declaration of Independence: that “all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the […]
The 4th of July in 2020
We have entered the decade of the Declaration of Independence Semiquincentennial with social turmoil similar in magnitude to the fateful 1770s. Simultaneous and intersecting crises in public health, the economy, and race relations have made 2020 feel more like a time to start fresh than a time to celebrate the past. Many Americans find themselves […]
Madison and the Merchant Class
Nationalist populism is a hostile reaction to globalization and its transformation of nation-states. As I argued in a previous Starting Points essay, what makes this movement “nationalist” is the angry sentiment among populists that elites today are rootless cosmopolitans who have betrayed their native countries. The “Davos Man” is despised because he supposedly regards all […]
