Greg Weiner on Whig Improvement and Constitutional Conservation

uh hello everybody this is the program on constitutional government at Harvard I'm Harvey Mansfield and we have a special event today which is a lecture on on Constitution Day a little bit late September 17th it's a few days after that but this is a lecture which is uh sponsored and and uh funded by our great friend Jack Miller and his people at the Jack Miller Center so uh thanks very much to them and our speaker today is Gregory weiner who's a professor of political science at Assumption College and actually right now the interim president of Assumption College he got his bachelor degree at University of Texas and his PhD at Georgetown and he spent some years in Washington DC as our communications director for Senator Robert Cary of Nebraska uh he's written a number of books uh his his first one is called Madison's metronome that which is called the Constitution majority rule and Tempo see of American politics the metronome and then um the American perk this is a study of Daniel Patrick Moynihan former professor at Harvard and we know no and also senator from New York who has a train station named after him now and uh he's written a book called The Old Whigs which is on Burke Lincoln and the politics of prudence and a fourth book on the political Constitution uh the case against judicial Supremacy he writes for the New York Times And The Washington Post and at law and Liberty and he's a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in in DC and the title of his talk is wig Improvement and constitutional conservation so Greg weiner thank you I have to say in my capacity uh as an interim president that I'm very impressed with anyone who can bang on the table and get people's attention because I bang on tables all day and nobody listens so it it's uh it's wonderful to join you all here I just have to share very quickly and I hope not in discreetly uh that Professor Mansfield when I was working perhaps it was after I'd published the book on uh Moynihan told me that after he had gone from the faculty here to the Senate uh Senator Moynihan arranged a dinner date and Professor Mansfield paid the tab uh well thank you Professor Mansfield uh the program on constitutional government for your your warm hospitality and the generous invitation and and uh and thank you also to the Jack Miller Center one of the great Endeavors of Civic philanthropy in our time my topic today is is an ethic of what I'm going to call wig Improvement the belief Loosely spoken of the 19th century American wig party in in material Improvement situated in and bounded by a commitment to constitutional conservation my argument is that wig Improvement is different in kind from and superior to the ideological belief in progress that emerged in the late 19th century and that in forms of idealism across this political Spectrum today continues to hover over our politics with your permission though I wish to begin more recently about three weeks ago a few miles from here President Biden commemorated the anniversary of President Kennedy's famed Rice University moonshot address by calling for a comparable effort to cure cancer Kennedy's moonshine he said was about America's possibility he recalled in quoting him now I was asked by Xi Jinping who I've met with more than any other world leader in the Tibetan plateau there were commas there's it wasn't that he met him more often than in the evening running the Tibetan plateau and he turned to me and he said can you define America for me and I said yes and I was sincere I said one word possibilities in America we believe anything is possible it was a variation on the theme President Biden has often limbed as in his first presidential address to Congress when he proclaimed quote we are the United States of America there is nothing beyond our capacity nothing we can't do if we do it together the theme is saccharine and in its way Anodyne as well but for one problem which I State at the risk of being a kill joint to whatever extent Americans believe anything is possible we are wrong there are all kinds of things that lie beyond our capacity all kinds of things we can't do together or alone we cannot for example instantly or rhetorically stop the spread of pandemic something present by by these predecessor Donald Trump learned despite having promised in his own first address to Congress that quote everything that is broken in our country can be fixed every problem can be solved it's hazardous to impute too much meaning to political rhetoric and it may be uncharitable to criticize presidents for saying what Americans in our can-do enthusiasm regard is obligatory on the other hand what a society regards as a harmless cliche can itself be revealing President Biden's claim that anything is possible when everybody knows that many things are not is a case in point it opens the way to understanding a phenomenon a phenomenon with both deep roots in how we think about politics and profound implications for our contemporary political crisis the repudiation of limits is a principle of political thought and practice amid a climate of bitter division one that stretches back at least a generation but has unquestionably intensified intensified in recent years Americans seem nearly unanimous on one point our politics is is stuck like trench warfare 2 fortified in bitter enemies stared each other across a No Man's Land of gridlock fighting for inches at increasingly high costs the result is an accelerating cycle of disillusionment and discontent the more the less politics produces what we want the more alienated we feel the more alienated we behave the less government can actually achieve a comparison of wig improvement with ideological progress or it's the other side of that coin which I'll call ideological Nostalgia helps to reframe the problem the essential problem or at least an essential problem is illimitable politics the principles on which contemporary politics is based not the transient issues of the day but rather the underlying ideas that guide our approach to thinking about Civic life are indifferent or hostile to limitation as an idea limitation was once both a matter of theoretical consensus and empirical reality there were limits in life limits to the possible limits to expectations but also and this is the point we do not appreciate limits to principles themselves the breadth of these limits is always a matter of dispute the key question is whether they exist at all a person who like the 19th century American transcendentalist William Cullen Bryan is predisposed to think in terms of progress as what he called an Unchained Giant one that jettison's all limits such a person is anchored and oriented in a fundamentally different way from one like Alexis to tocqueville who wrote quote Providence has not created the human race either entirely independent or perfectly slave it traces it is true a fatal circle around each man that he cannot leave but within its vast limits man is powerful and free or as tocqueville might say to President Biden this or that may be possible but in an intrinsic abstract anything is not it is the fact not the scope of limits that matters most illimitable principles or slogans paralyzed politics not least by demonizing moderation there is no reason a partisan of progress would meet an advocate of regression halfway any more than a proponent of American great greatness would compromise with American mediocrity indeed in the absence of limitations on what we can know and what we can do moderation becomes irrational whether one is reaching for this forward for the sunlit Uplands of progress we're back for the seductions of nostalgia the pursuit of the ideal the ethic of infinite possibility does not countenance compromise with what is I'm afraid that lengthy setting of the scene I would I would proffer the thesis that wig Improvement offers a means of embracing limitation without rejecting lowercase p progress as an i as an ambition we can see this in the writings and orations of some of the most thoughtful Statesmen of the American Whigs of whom I shall give particular attention to Daniel Webster Abraham Lincoln and Henry Clay I use as you will already have noticed the term American wigs a bit impressionistically for example I shall quote Webster before he became a wig in Lincoln's statement statesmanship of course shines most brightly in our memories after the wigs collapsed but the occupants of this category are bound by two commitments first to constitutional conservation and second to tangible and often material Improvement each of these shapes the others the other together they enable an Embrace of both progress and limitation that stands in sharp contrast to the illimitable principles of contemporary politics let's begin with Webster whose 1825 Bunker Hill address once ranked alongside farewell Washington's farewell addresses in uh in our classrooms delivered on the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill and in the presence of an aging Marquis de Lafayette Webster sketched what to contemporary ears is a striking thesis our task is decidedly not to scale infinite Heights of greatness in fact Webster casts that as impossible rather the task of American statesmanship was to conserve and build upon the work of a founding generation whose greatness could never be excelled Webster explains quoting him now we can win no laurels in a war for independence earlier and worthier hands have gathered them all nor are there places for us by the site of Solon or Alfred or other founders of states our fathers he concludes have filled them now that does not mean we have to Webster that we have no responsibility on the contrary note the invocation of Duty in the ensuing Passage quoting him again but there remains to us a great duty of defense and preservation there is open to us also a noble pursuit to which the spirit of the times strongly invites us our proper business he says is Improvement let our age be the age of improvement in a day of peace let us Advance the Arts of peace and the works of peace let us developed the resources of our land call forth its powers build up its institutions promote all its great interests and see whether we also in our day and generation may not perform something worthy to be remembered it's worth noting that for Webster conservation is a duty Improvement is a noble Pursuit anchored by that Duty the unstated premise I think is humility we do not see ourselves as solons or alfreds or as Washingtons or Madison's we are not inventors we are conservers now not simply by self-interest nor even by the claim that constitutional conservation happens contingently to be good for us in the Here and Now But ultimately Bound by a moral debt to the founding generation Improvement occurs within and is limited by that context the topics of improvement the objects of improvement are compatible with and indeed depend on conserving The Inheritance that that Webster says was left to us significantly he urges us to call forth the powers of our land not to reinvent its regime the Improvement of which he speaks is tangible even grander Ambitions like quote the Arts of Peace in the works of Peace occur within the rules of the regime and have at least noticeable tangible objects this juxtaposition of the duty of conservation and the noble pursuit of improvement Roots Improvement in something concrete and fixed preserving the founders achievement and through doing so leveraging it to better the condition of Americans and to be sure what Webster said was proper to an age of Peace he does not deny that glory is to be had in a different kind of era but he does set peace as a default and I would suggest that peace as Webster uses it and as it is important to us is not merely the absence of War but rather the absence of Crisis whether foreign or domestic it refers to a more or less settled condition in which greatness is not to be had because the circumstances do not require greatness I characterize this as a striking formulation the denial of greatness it leads to our ears today why is that because politics across the spectrum is shot through with variations on what I'll call capital P progress ideological progress where again it's reverse ideological nostalgia we are less likely to to see ourselves as Heirs of the founders than to believe the proper response to their glory is to pursue our own and that another wig noted 13 years after Webster was not only arrogant but outright dangerous that wig was Abraham Lincoln who elucidated the Peril famously in his 1838 lyceum address Lincoln not invoking but certainly echoing Webster contrasted the founding and the subsequent Generations quote theirs was the task and nobly they performed it to possess themselves and threw themselves us of this goodly land into up rear upon its Hills and its valleys a political edifice of Liberty and equal rights tis hours only to transmit these the former unprofained by the foot of an Invader the latter undecayed by the lapse of time and uh untorned by usurpation to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know this task of gratitude to our father's Justice to ourselves duty to posterity and love for our species in general all imperatively require us Faithfully to Faithfully to perform that only in the lysine addresses strongly suggestive our only task is the conservation of rooted in gratitude for the founders achievement one ought not overread a political speech but Lincoln was a careful writer and he repays careful reading only is a Superfluous word unless Lincoln especially wants us to constrain our ambitions he proceeds to say why arguing that the founding's generation's glory could not be rivaled because extraordinary historical circumstances that would not recur had called forth its greatness the problem Lincoln noted was that the ambition for greatness would persist he put it this way the game is caught and I believe it is true that with the catching and the pleasures of the chase the field of Glory is harvested and the crop is already appropriated but new Reapers will arise and they too will seek a field these members of what Lincoln called famously the family of the tribe of pardon me the family of the lion or the tribe of the eagle would never be satisfied merely with Pro with prudent governance that maintained what others had built towering genius he observed disdains a beaten path it thirsts and burns for distinction and if possible it will have it whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or enslaving free men the problem in other words was The Pursuit Of Glory in times that did not require it we know of course the irony that Lincoln's own greatness ensued but it was the product of genuinely of a genuinely heroic Statesman rising to genuinely heroic circumstances not a permanent pursuit of greatness for its own sake Lincoln's task as he often explained it during the Civil War was the preservation of the Founder's regime often because it was the founders regime significantly and also echoing Webster Lincoln's prayeration also situates Improvement within the context of conservation speaking of what he calls cold calculating and unimpassioned reason Lincoln proclaims let those materials be molded into general intelligence sound morality and in particular a reverence for the constitution in laws and that we improved to the last that we remain free to the last that we revered his name to the last and uh it continues with his his praise of George Washington his his uh political ideal or hero it would be a better way of putting it both of Webster's emerging Whig values humility and reverence are fully evident here Lincoln perhaps seeking to discipline his own Ambitions explicitly seeks to temper the Quest for Greatness by casting our A's our gaze backward in order to contextualize and anchor the Improvement and preservation that lie ahead moreover conservation of the founders achievement does not on this theory mean stagnation we are Lincoln says to improve to the last we like we rightly excuse me we're called Lincoln for the glory he attained in Saving the Union but there were other aspects of his statecraft his his early endorsements of the National Bank and internal improvements his presidential achievement of land grant colleges that partook of Whig political economy a final Whig perhaps the preeminent Whig Henry Clay shows us how that too was bounded by an ethic of conservation we can see that in Clay's 1824 Congressional address introducing the American system as he called it which combined internal improvements and strategically protective trade policies the bulk of the address is if I am permitted to say so rhetorically gifted and substantively boring that is it pertains to the particular economic conditions obtaining in the United States at the time and why those circumstances called for Clay's policy that circumstantial reasoning alone should command our attention clay does not call for protective trade practice policies excuse me for all time they are simply with the circumstances of his time demands he remarks quote and is not government called upon by every stimulating motive to adapt its policy to the actual condition an extended growth of our great Republic in other words he says the founding generation governed a nation confined to the Eastern Seaboard and one one that had rapidly expanded Westward times had changed but not the regime Clay's circumstantial reasoning has led some commentators to see him as what Michael oakshot would call a telecratic thinker that is one for whom the ends of the regime Trump the means of achieving them for example clay in this speech mocks The View that the constitution prevents further generation future Generations from adapting to circumstance so understood clay remarks quote this Constitution must be a most singular instrument it seems to be made for any other people that are own its action all together is altogether foreign yet the authority he asserts for implementing the American system is deeply originalist he denounces its opponents for elevating the spirit of the Constitution his his words over what it actually says just after mocking The View that the constitution inhibits adaptation clay turns his attention to the claim that tariffs can only be levied uh for the for the purpose of Revenue as opposed to policy observe the manner of the argument not just its content this he says is a restriction which we do not find in the Constitution restrictions for clay actually per actually present in the Constitution would create obstacles but they are not there now needless to say we We can question Clay's reading of the Constitution but he is clearly committed to situating the cause of improvement within constitutional confines in our popular imagination Clay is the Statesman of great compromises but not of great commitments yet for clay as for Webster and Lincoln moderation was itself a concept with profound moral content defending the Compromise of 1850 which wrecked by the way Webster's otherwise pristine moral reputation clay placed the spirit of moderation on a moral and substantive footing and significantly the associated virtue was the same one that induced the Whigs to preserve the Founder's Legacy humility clay explained quote let him who elevates himself above Humanity above its weaknesses its infirmities its wants its necessity say if he pleases I will never compromise but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromise this ethic of weak Improvement taken together constitutes an ethic of tangible and definable improvements within the context of both obligation and humility toward the founding generation it is Improvement anchored in and bounded by the duty of conservation the result is a politics of limitation of boundaries drawn epistemologically as well as by obligation I shall return in a moment to what I believe commends wig Improvement to our politics today but to see its value we also need to understand a value often confused with it an ideology of progress in another often pitted against it an ideology of nostalgia the idea of weak Improvement which which survived the the death of the American Whig party persisted roughly as long as it could be materially intangibly understood that is as long as it had concrete objects as the curtain came down on the 19th century those objects began to evaporate a thesis that we associate most famously with Frederick Jackson Turner Turner supposed that the frontier had provided a tangible outlet for American ambition but that that ambition would would persist the frontier said enabled a perennial Rebirth of national character and now with the frontier closing American Energy will continually demand a wider field for its exercise often the thesis is used to explain uh 20th century American expansionism or imperialism without a frontier to conquer Americans set out to conquer the world but there is a significant sense in which it applies intellectually the same restlessness that found an outlet on the Western frontier needed an infinite supply of new challenges enter the ideology of progress progressivism that is progress is in ideology not simply the terms used today to denote left-to-center politics emerged at roughly the same time in the American context progress with a capital P has a special and front place is a channel for what tocqueville called the singular agitation of the American mind which always needed something to achieve even amidst plenty there is a significant difference between wig Improvement and ideological progress the ideology of progress owes nothing to the past its entire premise on the contrary is that the past must be overcome and excelled thus the progressives introduced the largely new phenomenon of mainstream criticism of the Constitution it had been here before of course in in strains of abolitionism but even those pertain to a concrete and legitimate grievance as an ideology progress insists that the past up to and including yesterday is constantly an intrinsically retrograde because we must constantly surpass it today's Champion of progress is therefore always tomorrow's moral reprobate the progress that progressives also rejected the Whig virtue of moderation grounded in humility they saw themselves as scientists and positivists in the sense of Francis Bacon or or a ghost comp political questions could be settled by empirical observation testing and quantification in the same way as natural phenomena the result was was to consign Prudence to the side in favor of objective Solutions there was no Aristotelian practical wisdom no burkian Prudence no seeing through a glass Darkly amid the complexity and opacity of political life the result was a rejection of epistemic humility in favor of solutions that were guarded were regarded as scientifically objective that in turn LED not only to an abandonment but also to a self-conscious repudiation of compromise on these premises after all one's opponents are not simply incorrect they are irrational if Society is always evolving those who refuse to get with the program are always eight of us Prudence in moderation becomes sins against reason as well as morality rather than virtues ideological Nostalgia might seem to be the opposite there is a sense not much of a sense but a sense in which it is more confined because it is directed toward a known past rather than a limitless future on the other hand like all ideologies Nostalgia rejects limits the reinvention and romanticization of the past is nostalgia's Limitless Frontier the reverse image of ideological progress because of its Theocratic nature it is bound by rhetorical but not actual deference to the founding basic constitutional principles like tempered majority rule are secondary to the unattainable pursuit of an of a hazy and evolving objective the way things used to be which does not always or even usually reflect the way things actually were the nostalgic as well as for the progressive the goal is always One Step Beyond the Horizon to progressives opponents are irrational to nostalgics they are unpatriotic but in either case moderation is morally depraved which brings us to our current politics a restoration of the idea of limitation as expressed in the humility and duty but also the emphasis on tangible improvements of the American Whigs might be a tonic for a politics that is becoming and I've neither said nor believed this before diseased by that I mean it's not only failing to govern but seems intrinsically unable to that is because at least partly because it is based not on Modest Improvement nor on an obligation of conservation but rather illimitable principles of which more is always better than less illimitable principles will always divide us regardless of the intensity or nature of the controversies to which they are applied they will always cast our opponents as irrational they will always shove disputes to their extremes assuming lives of their own and triggering itself executing logic that imposes unrelenting dissatisfaction as the defining characteristic of political life an ethic of limitation in moderation by contrast is not a rejection of principled politics it is rooted in deeper principles principles that both Revere reason and precisely because they are reasonable Embrace its limits the point is not simply that reason cannot do everything it is the implication of that observation and its foundations for limitation in other realms embracing the limits of reason is an act of humility accepting a realm of opacity and mystery in human and especially political Affairs necessitates prudence the limits and variety of human life force Prudential choices that apply to what Bert called that apply what Burke called General views the concrete circumstances limits have other rules to play they are often the product of countervailing value forces rather we know this phenomenon in daily life uh the limit for our to our desire for Suites for example is is uh for people other than me Our Hope for health and once we accept the intrinsic nature of of trade-offs to The Human Condition Burke's reasoning becomes clearer he said on the eve of the French Revolution that in in Professor Mansfield will have to correct me because I'm now going to go from memory for a sentence that every day's account shows the danger of failing to keep even good principles within no bounds why do even good principles need to be kept within balance because the trade-offs they acknowledge should be embraced not denied humility about our own reasons should inhibit the drive to pursue principles to their logical conclusions where they overwhelm offsetting and competing interests we are fond of invoking President Kennedy's moonshot as a metaphor as President Biden did it works so logistically major premise going to the Moon seemed impossible minor premise anything is possible conclusion this is possible the problem with applying it to any conceivable hope we concoct is that the moonshot had a definite object it was a heroic and ambitious object but it was an object we knew when it was achieved there was a moment for crossing the goal line and spiking the ball it was not a solution constantly renewing demand for itself in the form of proliferating problems in many perhaps most contexts the moonshot metaphor corrodes the idea of limitation for that reason I prefer another precept of President Kennedy to govern is to choose choice between some of this and less of that is a defining constructive and limiting principle of American political life the utility of wig Improvement is that it channels those Ambitions toward attainable goals Roots them in moderation and humility and situates them within the context of constitutional conservation once we accept not only the inevitability but also the value of limits we are able to see politics more constructively limits like those wig Improvement imposes moderate what we expect of ourselves each other our institutions and our society they chase in how we think about the pace of change we demand whatever it may be they force compromise and make a virtue of moderation and by placing our politics on this sure political footage restoring an ethic of limitation could do more than break through the trench warfare of contemporary politics it might break the spiral of discontent that afflicts us thank you foreign [Applause] [Music] Frederick Jackson Turner okay he's important but where is the real germ where is where is the the origin why why leave the wink point of view there who's responsible for this but I agree with you is Dreadful shift from a politics of improvement to the politics of progress uh I would identify a couple uh one would be the American transcendentalists who I think we we normally think of as hegelians but who are in some ways precursors to ideological progress uh there was increasing influence and Woodrow Wilson would be the clearest uh uh example of it of the uh uh German model of the University of social science of what was knowable uh that certainly was a was an enormous influence on the academic progresses Leicester Frank Ward and and uh in some of those but I I do think there is a role for this concept of the need for the imagination to have somewhere to a field on which to play and I Improvement is one thing when there is land to the West that we can into which we can keep expanding or there are internal improvements build whatever once the frontier whether that's land or or uh basic material security whatever else once that's closed an ambition persists it needs somewhere to go I and I do think uh progress and I would argue also Nostalgia plan to that thank you so the Limitless used to be is used to be in the realm of religious belief obviously um whereas I think that enabled Americans to accept limits in politics though for Lincoln is the other man at least accepting limits was obviously something he was grappling with as you suggested but more broadly as religious belief has weakened obviously the hunger for the Limitless you know is seeping seeps into politics more and more I like by the way very much here your suggestion of progressivism and nostalgism are kind of two sides of the coin in both uh uh um you know very timely suggestion obviously both uh immoderate in this sense um and you know I think for this reason that uh there needs to be something complete almost otherworldly when people aren't finding that elsewhere in their lives so can limits can aiming at Improvement rather than ultimacy really come back into politics in the absence of some sort of religious or other renewal thank you so it's a great question I'm going to get in trouble very quickly if I attempt to invoke vogeland but I'm going to do it anymore in some ways it depends what uh what are political theology is uh so in Augustine character Lisa's Vogel and understand understood it where a basic premise of the uh the city of God for example was that the Limitless was unattainable and that therefore we had to make our way in this world with uh some overlap between the city of God and the City that I think can be quite constraining and I think humility as a virtue could be quite constrained but I take your point that it's almost like a variation on nism right the the the desire for Community has to go somewhere the desire for Transcendence has to go somewhere too I I do think one of the the the most corrosive forces in modern and I'm using that term loosely so I I don't mean Trump I don't mean Obama but but generally speaking is that politics whether it's whether it's statecraft or political argumentation has conquered uh Civil Society so our corporations our universities our our are often obsessed with political advocacy rather than their own mediating role I I one of the uh most depressing illustrations of this uh was a New York Times story it must be in the beginning of the Trump presidency it was how to talk to your relatives about politics at Thanksgiving which was something for which we had never before needed instruction I would argue you didn't need it then I didn't need it then either but but the sense that even our dinner tables were intrinsically about politics not just that we talked politics around the table but we better get ready for it because that's the point of getting together I I think it's very corrective too yeah to make sure great thank you so much uh I've got a a couple questions related to the sort of related to this question about the progressives um so the first is uh it was very striking from the from the glycemia dress and the Bunker Hill address uh in the the wig ethos that you were interested in there is this strong sense of comparison to the founding generation and a sense of what your duties are as The Heirs of that tradition and you might see something analogous with the progressives seeing them seeing their role not looking back for the founding but seeing themselves as the children of the Civil War generation uh so it might be interesting I think to compare for instance Oliver Wendell Holmes is ethosyphilis Soldier speech or whatever which is his very different kind of reflection on the demand for a new heroism with the Bunker Hill and so anyways that's the first question it's how the do you see a difference in how the progressives saw their relationship to the Civil War compared to how the Whigs thought their relationship to the the founding generation and the second question is maybe just to be a little more so someone like Teddy Roosevelt I see much more in the tradition of the kind of wig conservationist and Improvement I think that in the more abstract drive for permanent progress so where do you see in the Progressive moment continued resonances of that older tradition uh I'll take the second question first by the way anyone who's going to follow Professor lady has to begin the question I agree with you in time of of Theodore Roosevelt about who I'm not by any means an expert is that at least constitutionally is very much a progress very much an advocate of an expanded State a concentrated almost a limitless presidency sort of driven by personality so I do think he stands in that tradition to the extent he's a a conservationist by the the parks and and so forth but I think you're pursuing a definite object um it's an interesting comparison of the progressives to the uh civil war with the with that generation's comparison of itself to the to the family what seems to me intrinsically different is that progress and again I would argue Nostalgia to is a uh is a solution and like all products it drives demand for itself so is it is uh in constant perpetual and I I think intrinsically unending pursuit of its own prod of a of a market for Solutions which of course is is um is problems I I would argue that's not quite on your question but but um when Anne actually spoke about the difference between New Deal liberalism and uh in the new left of the 1960s New Deal liberalism was if somebody's poor here's a check now you're not poor that's now that's that's oversimplified but um but the Great Society by contrast was we are going to eradicate uh poverty by and by that we're going to control the social forces which produce it and uh and so forth so I think that's another example of it it although it may prove your previous point right about each generation trying to excel the one before I I do think there's some endemic to ideological progress but all right it's permitted for younger people to ask questions yeah no that's okay yeah go ahead okay so you were talking about the wig Improvement is very material if you think about Henry Clay's American system can we apply that same principle to moral Improvement or does that get us lost abstraction that's an excellent point and I I think I I think what you've identified is a key and fundamental differentiator between Improvement and progress which is the Improvement does not seek to evolve or to change on the contrary it seeks to conserve it the the permanent things is Kirk called I don't think ideological progress again I'll keep saying ideological Nostalgia are capable of limitation and the same uh in in the same sense and I think the notion of moral progress as I said before intrinsically make I mean when when students tell me for example they cannot understand the morality of someone like Thomas Jefferson who enslaved people and wrote so beautifully in that freedom I can't either but I do ask them is I would challenge you what do we accept today that will seem morally important tomorrow we're in 20 years 50 years 100 Years or or uh whatever it is if moral if morals are always progressing there's nothing permanent that underlies them and if there's something permanent by the way you can say you can say is I would say Jefferson was a hypocrite I might even say most State most great Statesmen are because they have to deal with competing uh they have to deal with competing uh principles but if the idea is that the morality itself not the execution not the attainment but morality itself is always evolving then we are always those including those uh leading the charge today are intrinsically going to be replaced tomorrow Paul Peterson so um on the Progressive Point um where we were it occurs to me that Woodrow Wilson himself is pretty much the defining figure especially if you're thinking more institutionally you're more you've been talking more about ideas and institutions but if you think about the Constitution was all about consensus building so there's all this consensus building structure the separation of powers The veto points and all the checks and balances so Wilson did not like that he wanted a strong assertive president he wanted the political party that was principled he wanted the majority to rule and if we have anything that distinguishes progressivism today it's it's uh it treats all the consensus demanding institutions of society to be eliminated I I had a student in class uh a couple weeks ago who was outraged that you cannot abolish the Senate because the Constitution says you cannot accomplish the Senate and that's that's just good and evil right you cannot have majority control so it seems to me that this this that what you've identified here is this fundamental tension between the Constitution and the consensus building document and progressivism as majoritarianism yeah that's very interesting I I do agree that Wilson is the epitome depending on your perspective either the Zenith or the major of this of this content what's what's so Wilson with me as you know says the problems of the Constitution is is Newtonian and Society that's a that's a caricature of the Constitution at best all right so the the Constitution is a consensus building mechanism enables Improvement and it doesn't it doesn't require stasis it might require progression it might require regression depending on the on the knees what strikes me is most uh capital P progresses again let me draw a distinction between liberalism in politics today and progressivism is uh in anybody with self-conscious choice of those words could be can be very revealing is that what troubled Wilson so much about unbridled congressional power which he favored until he was seeking executive power was that it was as he put it irrational politics does not matter it's not irrational but it's not irrational yay right it's just not what it's uh I mean in some ways it's beautifully either irrational or or a rational it deals with I I I've said before that that Prudence is the ability to keep two contradicting ideas in your mind at one time and see that they're both true um if politics is all about irrationality the procedure is just in a way of uh objective partners and once a month I think any of the most admiring biography of Wilson I think would admit this was nothing if not condescending toward his irrational his irrational purposes yeah rodents and hypocrisy this is just a quick follow-up that called Jefferson the hypocrite and I extend holding two competing ideas that uh mutually exclusion ahead at the same time Putin's so uh how I mean navigate the the contempt and the elevation sorry um I'm not saying this is going to be an unsatisfactory as well you navigate a Prudential okay I mean it would be the uh uh I think the antithesis approves to try to drive me perfect line the the solutions that yeah and two I mean I I think and I I often said this to students let's take the example of Lincoln Lincoln was a moderate on the on the question of Enlightenment was known as a moderate and I would say pursued abolition fairly moderately until it was no until moderation was no longer 10. so he Lincoln is is I'm sure many of you know has schemes for gradual compensated emancipation that would have taken enslavement into the early 19 early 20s century in some objective isolated sense is saying I'm going to allow enslavement to continue for 30 years sinful and wicked in some way I I think it is the Statesman doesn't have the luxury uh moral cure I think Wilson is actually a very good example of what happens when Wilson I am quoting his recording Wilson but uh something to the effect of you may be able to help me with this the lead you're talking about I'm talking about he he said once that I couldn't get up in the morning if I didn't think I was the personal agent of God it was something I mean I'm not it sounds ridiculous but it was something for him fairly close to that right recipe for lounging in bed yes yes now uh Lincoln by the way also saw himself uh as in sort of in some ways working uh indicted by the hands of the Providence but that was a constraint it wasn't a license which is a which is a big difference you use the term conservation and not conservatism I noticed that you want to yeah I do explain about that say something to extenuate that that gross error absolutely um yes okay uh George Carey was mentor a great scholar of the American family and was known throughout most of his life as a as a political conservative and I asked him once do you still consider yourself a conservative so I don't say that anymore because the word in in in contemporary conversation has lost me he says you say he called himself a perkier and that's why I emphasis that's why I emphasize conservation uh because I think in this is um goes back to the issue of ideological nostalgia it has in in recent years I would say broadly defined lost the sense that it is of what it is concerned still a gross error hopefully that extends all right okay uh thank you uh if I recall the references to the glory of Washington that are so common in Lincoln's early speeches uh Peter out in his major presidential addresses and I know when you were talking about Webster you mentioned that uh he mostly focused on periods of peace and so I'm wondering what the wig ethic has to tell us about times of Crisis did the principles stay the same or is there a different approach we should take well this is the trick of prudence is that it it requires boldness and or caution depending on what the circumstances call forward Prudence is not cowardice it's not uh it's not any sort of ideological caution I do believe and I should know this more definitely than I do that Lincoln's speeches on the way to his inauguration he talked about the the uh oh the biography of Washington Weems thank you uh talked about having irreverently about having read it as a boy so but I I mean I do take your point I mean different moments call for uh call for different themes I but one thing I would know this goes back to your question about religion is that Lincoln's speeches I would say became more deliberately Christian as the war proceeded there's all kinds there's a cottage industry on whether Lincoln was an atheist or a deist or whatever else rhetorically I think unquestionably the the epitome is the second inaugural but uh they they certainly become more Laden I would say with with Christianity what about uh going back to crisis um and you remark that uh you know it's typical of limitlessness that it exaggerates crisis so it makes it something permanent but still if there is a real crisis um doesn't that require that one's attention go to something what is uh possible to do so in the way of of Biden's possibilities you would need to encourage people to get off their Duff and get and do something I I think that yeah yeah I think that's right and you know the danger of prudence is always that it's tautological that The Prudent thing to do is what's prudent yeah but um uh but but I I do think Prudence needs to be open to it to inspiration or caution or but it needs to be rooted in circumstance I would say Lincoln's uh loftier rhetoric is rooted in the circumstance of the of the fact that the nation was was torn in two uh for the past I mean pick your number of years I won't even try let's say the past decade we have been uh telling ourselves we are in some sort of Crisis or another it's it's a it's a right crisis it's a left crisis or whatever but it's become the ordinary idiom of politics and um due respect to Biden whom I'm uh often a fan we're not I mean we're not at War right we're not there's not an existential danger to the uh to the nature there may there may be good things to do and curing cancer would certainly be not a uh oncologist or anything right so I can't speak to the attainability of the cold but certainly uh I mean he did to his credit delineate in that speech that we wanted to cut um uh uh deaths by a certain amount by within 30 years and so forth but but it is very I mean I think circumstances themselves are limited because circumstances change actual circumstances don't reflect a permanent crisis but still a crisis um a principle um why wasn't it um somebody said that um I mean you're presenting Lincoln as a wig but he was the founder of the Republican Party perhaps because uh the leagues couldn't answer the problem of slavery and and he called her at any rate he did so I I I'm not an expert in American political development I wouldn't want to present myself such I I suspect the end of the Whig party was not only the internal dissension over slavery I'm not sure that it couldn't solve it in principles so much is that it couldn't uh couldn't consolve it through couldn't solve it through consensus building not least because as you're suggesting it's an ultimate uh it's an ultimate uh value I think that's one reason I think another is is the difficulty and and I get it of of moderation as a principle as opposed to elucidating that is a is a moral principle as opposed to incentive of concrete commitments I certainly would not deny that a crisis requires encouragement and bold action I would say that I'm not sure I'm adequately answering the question but I would say that makes it all the more necessary not to be on a constant crisis putting rhetorically so that we can answer those moments when they arise but when do you know when to uh calm down that's a difficulty uh yeah perhaps we typically don't yeah perhaps we typically don't that's uh uh I I don't I I I want to be very conscious of how I keep saying this but but I think Prudence has to has to govern that choice I don't think there's an objective measurement but it's no it's also no the the phenomenon of Crisis leaders being turned out of a Churchill itself will be turned out of office when The Crisis passes this uh maybe perhaps that's a constraint I think of um um the phrase of Barry Goldwater put in his mouth by an old friend of mine now late friend Harry Johnson that moderation in uh in the defensive virtue was not a is a vice or not a not not a not a good thing so so and isn't isn't there a kind of intrinsic weakness to the notion of moderation or calming yourself um aren't there occasions when you want to steal yourself uh yes uh I did not know that friend and uh you can't speak can't speak to him I would say right carefully I would say this of his students yeah that they were not afflicted by intellectual humility no uh so I I think um right there's a reason Goldwater lost 40 so I don't know how many states but uh so I if success is important then Purity is not going to be terribly helpful in political life I I do think there are moments when you need to steal yourself and there are moments when ultimate values are at stake every enslavement was was uh was one of those uh but but even there we needed someone who was known in his days moderate to navigate it I I would say I'm sorry one more quick point which is I would I would say moderation is a position of strength because it reflects the self-confidence to be both humble and decisive now it it uh but it's certainly I take your place certainly can appear to be a position of a posture of weakness uh I I don't think you know in some ways Biden is like Henry Clay in our popular imagination right he's a wheelie dealer and Trump was the same way the art of the deal and so forth then yeah it's never clear quite what you're doing for moderation is not neutrality absolutely integrality is what is really weak yeah very quickly all right yes I'm wondering about the role of reason and rationality in uh wig Improvement and limitations so in in the lyceum address for example Lincoln's appeal to hold calculating unimpassioned reason uh like this over Reliance on human reason seems to be a lack of limitation in itself and uh Lincoln I think clearly doesn't actually believe this because then he encourages reverence for the Constitution reference for George Washington both of which are not by fully rational things and also uh his like fragment on Niagara Falls for example he has clear reverence for nature uh and I'm wondering how you reconcile this uh appeal to cold calculating on a passionate reason if this is truly wig improvement work this is Lincoln saying something uh to accomplish a specific goal in this specific moment I I would that line is always bonded me I am I'm not one for whom Lincoln must always where we have to collapse his entire life into a singularity and he must always be consistent I I mean I would argue the second another girl for example is in in the best sense of the word sentimental uh it's an appeal to uh to emotion rather than reason uh there's something exuberant about that that I agree with you is not compatible with the with the appeal to the to the founders yeah um thank you so much um I really admired your talk and I'm you've beautifully laid out that there's an important aspect of wig Improvement has a lot to do with a certain kind of mood right we need gratitude humility reverence sentimentality maybe even um and that seems to be a key feature of of what wig Improvement is about but as we saw the fact that the Senate cannot be abolished that's an Institutional um that's an Institutional factor and I wonder do you see any role for institutional improvements in your notion of wig Improvement and if so maybe you could even give a concrete example because in some respects the reverence for the founders which makes American the American political system unique and and great also has the danger of making it sclerotic right yes I would argue it has the effect of requiring considerable and persistent consensus for things to occur so for example when when it used to be said that America has been pushing for uh for Health Care reform for 100 years and it never happened that must be the system there was no extended point at which we were there was a serious consensus for anyone in particular idea having said that institutions can certainly be in in mixing with the circumstances of the day can certainly become sclerotic I would not say the Senate is one of those but I would say on many days not on every day because I vacillate on this I would say perhaps the filibuster is that once it becomes and uh you know daschal and Trent Lott and then McConnell and Harry Reid went back and forth on who who insulted who in the in the sandbox first uh but uh I think as a de facto super majority requirement for ordinary legislation uh I I that I'm going to argue the score it's become an institution so you're against the filibusters today yeah today so that was just my question yeah because I wonder you it seems to me that the defining play of our time is Mitch McConnell who's not moderate at all when it comes to defending the institutions or defending what he thinks is correct I mean he was willing to hold up an appointment a confirmation of an appointment to the Supreme Court for a considerable period of time in pursuit of a goal what she thought was important for uh you know conserving the uh institutions of the past and For Whom the filibuster is it's truly gave up the filibuster he said if you guys are gonna you said I've got to use it too uh the majority rule but um but I would have thought that on the whole if you were to pick any one figure on the landscape today he is the embodiment of the quick principle that you outlayed when you're giving your fine uh statement like his his image just leaked to my mind that's that's very interesting I don't I had not considered him in that context he certainly is a stalwart defender of the Senate institutionally and we we need we need and do not have institution with voices in very many in either house of Congress I'm trying to think of whether it by the way I um the delay on Garland was uh politics and the idea that the Supreme Court is somehow isolated on this this pristine Island from from politics I don't buy I'm trying to decide if I would put him in the category of improvement I might I just haven't thought about it he is from Kentucky although um if I am not mistaken Rand Paul gave a speech to denouncing him the clay is insufficiently principled oh I'm sure no not different people different people I'm not going to give you McConnell because this this institutionalist couldn't allow the Senate to uh first could could allow the Senate to confirm a Supreme Court Judge way close to the election which I thought was wrong and then having said that he did the same thing uh with with her with uh with with Amy Barrett so I think there's a weakness to his and and also saying publicly we you know our aim is is to Simply to uh no I think Mansion is better Mansion turns out not to be perfect because he got hornswoggled on this climate so he's not always a brilliant politician but I think he on the whole right he's for improvement much more I think he why he's a Democrat he likes he likes things to be done but he has constitutional schools so I think he's your serious wig these days I I would just make one one observation of it it doesn't go to the heart of your question but I think it's a Westerner McConnell's mistake on Garland was elucidating an iron-class principle he was elucidating an iron-clad principle which he then did not could not everyone was to put it to follow I think I think had we cast both as the as the the mechanisms of seasoned majority rule I I think I think it would have been more defensible had he been Prudential rather than rather than strictly principled credential means uh giving a reason which you can live with afterwards all right all right yeah I'm sort of wondering how do we where do we fit in moderation as a virtue with Kirk's permanent things or whatever the ultimate goals that we have are we simply to make tomorrow better than today in limited and concrete ways or should there be any sort of plan any sort of principle that we sold to other than you know Prudential moderation well I would say credential moderation is a principle I guess I would say that first it's rooted to me deeply rooted in the virtue of humility and in the week's case of patriotism um I would say that in the absence of an actual crisis tomorrow being tangibly better today is not neither a bad goal nor a bad outcome you're from ethic wood yeah how does um can you talk about the conservation of the Constitution how many Constitutional Amendments fit into your period because obviously some Amendments have radically changed the original the post-civil war people most obviously yeah so so our uh process for amendment I think allows Improvement either in situations of pertinent uh persistent excuse me uh consensus or a genuine crisis right the in in the the post-civil war amendments grow out of that I do think we have an allergy to Constitutional Amendments that is uh unhealthy I I don't think you know when I grew up in Texas and the Texas Constitution was like the European Constitution it's like this this long because if you want to elect a new dog catcher you go and amend the state constitution by by referendum having said that I would say two things about Madison one is that he midwifed the Constitution and then immediately proposed depending on how you count them 10 or 12. 10 or 12 amendments moreover that I think this goes to the point of whether the the the there's a legal debate to begin whether the Senate can be abolished the Articles of Confederation couldn't be abolished either Madison was quite aware I would say at all times that he was one Constitutional Convention away from I mean that's the whole I would say the whole point of the veneration in in number 47 and federal is 47. and the the allergy to Constitutional Amendment which again should not be uh easier I would say than it is politically I mean constitutionally forces us to say this is the priority I am now going to bend the Constitution and jam it into that priority so I I I I I think there's a there's a good original this case for for amendments for our for Ministry made I Martin Diamond I think it was observed that the the super majority requirement for Constitutional Amendments did not require a super majority required that a majority be nationally distributed so an amendment could pass in three quarters of the state but it only needed a plurality or a majority in each in each state when there are when there are true hardened geographical divides that that becomes much more problematic page could you say a little more about the origin or sources of the ideology of nostalgia that you identified I go back I mean I I did of course call it ideological and I would defend that I I I it it but there's a sense in which it is a mood not an idea it's a disposition sort of a disposition you know I worked in the senate in the 1990s and I always used to say there was a rule you know I don't say to rule that the day you leave after you leave employment in the Senate you have to start saying things were better back when I worked there um so I think there's something nostalgic that is just appealing to us um I do think that appeal and it's not quite answering your question about sources but has a limitless character to it because it's not a definite object it's a it's a romanticized object uh it's you're hearing from an original industry right so so I'm not I I um I I do understand the temptation but I think there's a real difference between conservatism and nostalgia the reason I say it's ideological is it's not just that it's illimitable it's that it trumps all other ends so if majority rule hypothetically legitimately won election were to get in the way of of nostalgia of its aims I don't think it can count as that and I would at the I I hesitate to to walk out onto this ice but I'm not sure I could come up I'm already out on the ice let's just go for it uh trumpism as a phenomenon I think is deeply rooted in Nostalgia I'm not sure I could I'm not sure I mean by the way I think it's widely misunderstood and I think Trump voters are widely condescended to and which which reinforces the sense of alienation uh so I I think it it I think there there are certainly things there we need to uh the society uh at large needs to needs to in a political Elite need to do a better job of of listening to and accommodating um but I'm not sure there I I'm not sure what I could identify as the unifying set of principles there it seems more of a mood to me Christian Jacob uh yeah um so if one political party say is immoderate or goes too far um should it be the response like responsibility of the other political party to be to be moderate in response to that or should they moderately counter that their moderation [Laughter] that's a debater okay okay um if one party is truly wildly immoderate I can see I can certainly see the case for a very firm stand against it on the other hand if if in here by the way I could be as easily talking about any of our last 10 presidents um all right let's go back and count but but something like that if for example to take the presidency for example if before you've moved in you're planning your Presidential Library and and raising funds for it it is probably not you you're probably not uh planning on moderation you're asking how can I make my heart my art my stamp on History how can I get my name written in the history books yeah I'm straying for your question because I'm dodging it uh but I think if you look at our rankings of great presence that the historians do George Bush Senior will never make that list ever uh because we can't account for Prudence in popular imagination we can only count for we can only account for greatness and we associate greatness with either crisis or substantial change I think the reason I say that and here I am attempting to Circle back to your question there is a great temptation the seductive temptation uh to justify one's own behavior and again I could I could be talking about either side this would go back to the filibuster as well uh to to the abuse there's a great temptation to justify one's own impulses according to someone else having comparable impulses in the other in the other direction and I think that is a dangerous I would say that is a dangerous thing that's what about ISM that that is what about it and that's a that's a bipartisan phenomena Progressive wing of the Supreme Court you might say uh the people who thought the living Constitution is living and therefore you know changes well if they don't if they lose power then you just sort of Stardust Isis check you know starting assessment sounds very prudent very moderate very sensible uh guiding principle but maybe you have to correct the sins in the past so what do you suggest Well everybody's in favor of story decisions until they don't want them to see I do think there is a a an important role in John Marshall is the great Exemplar of this for judicial statesmanship by the way I think Roberts has been outflanked uh by by sure numbers but I think he has impulses in this uh in this direction tendencies in this in this direction um I would say that uh Starry decisis is not I don't think a principle in and of it so it can guide the way one thinks about originalism it can't freeze any one uh decision at the moment it was decided or um uh rather I mean Hana aren't the the the greatest the wildest revolutionary becomes a conservative The Day After the Revolution I may be I may be misattributing that first Virgo and now Hannah Arendt okay um all right so I I you know I I I I when it becomes an end unto itself then the question uh for the living constitutionalist is wasn't the Hobbes case just decided it isn't it now in the books and don't we owe it definitely that's an oversimplified way of thinking about starting decisions but but it does go to the point of once you consolidate your wins anybody who doesn't get what the program is is uh is backwards in some sense uh thanks again for the talk you know maybe one sort of tendentious way of reading the defensive wigism that you've offered is something like uh unlike the other Alternatives wigs only act like they're in a crisis when they're actually in a crisis and when they're not in a crisis they act prudently humbly moderately and dutifully right and so then the crucial question becomes you know when are we in a crisis because of course every other political movement or party would say sure we also only act like we're in a crisis when we're actually in a crisis so do the Whigs have a better Criterion for judging what a crisis is than these other Alternatives or how would you state the superiority in those terms yeah I I I think that's a perfectly Fair summary of the wig disposition the one thing I would add is when we're in a crisis we act with humility but also decisively um I think that um the problem with one one must have criteria in in statecraft or or it's or their where it becomes Limitless which is what I'm criticizing but but criteria themselves can become illimitable and that's why I would resist perhaps again but out of dodging the question prudently is um that Prudence can't has to have some some guidelines has to have some anchoring principles I think Prudence is is itself a virtue uh but it cannot give itself over to abstract definitions that are divorced from the reality of political life so it's with apologies to Justice Stewart I don't know what a crisis is but I know it when I see it I mean I'm not sure we can do better than that I had to pile on but how uh someone with the man with a wig disposition deal with the problem of evil can we compromise with evil uh should become that's evil well it's it's it's it's a it's a fair question I teach at a Catholic institution I am not a Catholic theologian but in Catholic theology sin is an evil right that's the word that's used that means not um that means jaywalking is an evil right in in in in Catholic theology but there are degrees of it right there there are some things that are more evil than uh than others I think we have to have a good Prudential grass you got a a sort of situation it's almost a a circumstantial grasp I think we need a firm idea of what evil is but good circumstantial reasoning about how to confront it right Nazism evil communism evil uh uh unquestionably and if we could there are any number of others we could uh we could name but those still have to be dealt with credentially I mean so some principles are ultimate but uh there are very few principles that don't run into other principles on the way to their logical conclusion that's what's so striking about Burke's uh formulation of good principles being kept within bounds I think it's very foreign to our years today to say if it's a good principle why are we keeping it in uh in bounds but I think one important reason is there are other good principles and it's pretty hard to have just one there are moments right there there's certainly are moments where this principle is the overriding principle but I I would say those that's not the normal condition of politics it shouldn't be the normal condition yeah um would you say that the wig principle is something that's implemented from the bottom up that is voters dictated to their leaders at The Ballot Box or is it something that comes from the top down that is like a leader like a Lincoln sort of guiding the people toward that principle or Vision inspection is it immersion does it reflect emerging consensus or or uh leaders or top down leaders yeah that's a great question uh I I think the middle ground might be statesmanship Lincoln clearly had ends in mind so he didn't follow consensus but he did understood understand the need to wait for it and to build it that to me is the the middle ground there I'm not sure the conventional uh sorry exactly the conventional reasons the wigs collapsed not a historian are they were hopelessly geographically divided over uh enlightenment and uh the the the the ethic of compromise was not it's hard to sink your teeth into it's hard to get excited I mean in fact the whole point is not to get excited about it it doesn't it's not going to bring people to the you can't uh bring a political convention to its feet by by yelling for uh for moderation but but I would say Lincoln uh sculpted consensus um not out of not from nothing it was it was from the raw material of public opinion but I would say there's certainly a role for uh I I think waiting it waiting for it to emerge and leading it are compatible so I'm I'm more of a fan of David moderation the term compromise but uh so thinking about moderation is this what you're giving us is it like a I did memorium a Requiem or is it a call to Arms let's let's get there and if it's a letter us so we're obviously you know not there we moved further and farther from there in recent decades how does that happen is that still International Airport of moderation what was striking me about the question is um I I wanted to be a call to arms but I'm not sure that's a moderate position right I mean this goes back to your question of when there's a genuine crisis and when there's not um I do think that the reason I say we're either or politics is becoming emphasis on becoming diseased is that any moderation is either irrational or unpatriotic there are other complicated factors the media environment doesn't it's hard to tweet moderation in 140 characters or whatever it is now um I don't think we're in a moment of political crisis but um it's not in medical terms it's not an emerging crisis it's not a sudden crisis but it might be a moment where we need to get ahead of it with uh with further result than we than we are and the question which I think is a fair way is can moderation pull that off can moderation make a case for itself right or can moderation uh win so that you can be moderate what do you think of the word existential to define a crisis it feels like every crisis is not existential crisis so we can't even have moderate crises I I I don't care for it there there certainly are existential crises I I think when they happen they they I I'm not sure I could make this Point emphatically in historical terms but it seems to be an existential crisis ought to be sufficiently evident to command consensus um so uh the constant unrelenting political conversation about existential crises whether it's um whether it's the left or the or the right I I think it is terribly unopened that's very good and uh that's a nice conclusion and we're very grateful to you thank you Greg weiner but a president as well as a professor thank you so thanks [Applause]

Channel: Program on Constitutional Government at Harvard

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Id: Dha1qekFMng

Length: 91min 0sec (5460 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 12 2023