Michael Novak: "Writing from Left to Right: My Journey from Liberal to Conservative"

Writing from Left to Right: My Journey from Liberal to Conservative
Image Books. September 2013.

Engagingly, writing as if to old friends and foes, Michael Novak shows how Providence (not deliberate choice) placed him in the middle of many crucial events of his time: a month in wartime Vietnam, the student riots of the 1960s, the Reagan revolution, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Bill Clinton's welfare reform, and the struggles for human rights in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also spent fascinating days, sometimes longer, with inspiring leaders like Sargent Shriver, Bobby Kennedy, George McGovern, Jack Kemp, Václav Havel, President Reagan, Lady Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II, who helped shape—and reshape—his political views.

Yet through it all, as Novak’s sharply etched memoir shows, his focus on helping the poor and defending universal human rights remained constant; he gradually came to see building small businesses and envy-free democracies as the only realistic way to build free societies. Without economic growth from the bottom up, democracies are not stable. Without protections for liberties of conscience and economic creativity, democracies will fail. Free societies need three liberties in one: economic liberty, political liberty, and liberty of spirit.

Novak’s writing throughout is warm, fast paced, and often very beautiful. His narrative power is memorable.

Presentations

• Crisis Co-Founder Celebrates 80th Year with New Memoir, by Michael Pakaluk. Crisis Magazine. 09/09/13.
  
• Excerpt
  
• "Writing from Left to Right: My Journey From Liberal to Conservative" CSPAN-2 BookTV. Address to the Kirkpatrick Society at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
  
• Between the Covers: Interview with Michael Novak. National Review 10/01/13.
  
• Kresta in the Afternoon: Michael Novak 10/8/13.
  
• Five Questions with Michael Novak, by Joshua Mercer. CatholicVote.com.
  

Reviews

• Michael Novak's Moral Compass, by Mark Michalski. Real Clear Religion 09/04/14.
  
• Michael Novak, from Socialism to Conservatism, by Christopher White.
  
• Capturing a Political and Spiritual Moment, by Fr. John McCloskey. National Catholic Register 09/14/13.
  
• A Catholic for All Seasons, by Mary Eberstadt. National Review 10/14/13.
  
• BOOK REVIEW: ‘Writing From Left to Right’ Washington Times 12/4/13.
  
  

Also of Interest

PAPAL ECONOMICS: The Catholic Church on Democratic Capitalism, from Rerum Novarum to Caritas in Veritate, by Maciej Zieba.
Intercollegiate Studies Institute. July 31, 2013.

Maciej Zieba, OP, a close associate of Pope John Paul II, is the author of The Surprising Pope: Understanding the Thought of John Paul II. He was a key player in the Polish Solidarity movement and is the director of the European Solidarity Center and the founder of the Tertio Millennio Institute in Poland. Father Zieba has lectured extensively on economics and theology. Reviews

• Popes on Economics, by Michael P. Orsi. First Things 10/23/13. "There exists a great deal of confusion regarding the popes’ social encyclicals. The problem is threefold: they span over one hundred years in changing political and social milieus; the language that is used is inconsistent; and, finally, there are competing tensions contained in the documents. This book navigates the reader through the confusion."
  
• Toward a More Human State of Economics, by Gabriel Torretta, O.P. Catholic World Report 10/16/13.
  

Washington's God by Michael and Jana Novak - Reviews and Commentary

Acquired by way of a gift from a good friend, Michael and (daughter) Jana Novak's Washington's God, an investigation into the religious faith of the father of our country -- and, it would appear, that he was something more than a deist.

I have a number of books I am attempting to plow through at the moment, but expect I will not be able to resist cracking this open in the coming week. I have been anticipating this book ever since I heard about it. I expect it will be a compliment to Novak's excellent study of the religious faith and disposition of our founding fathers: On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding (Encounter Books, April 2003).

From the publisher's description:

Washington has long been viewed as the patron saint of secular government, but in Washington's God, Michael Novak and his daughter, Jana, reveal that it was Washington's strong faith in divine Providence that gave meaning and force to his monumental life. Narrowly escaping a British trap during the Battle of Brooklyn, Washington didn't credit his survival to courage or tactical expertise; he blamed himself for marching his men into certain doom and marveled at the Providence that delivered them. Throughout his career, Washington held fast to the conviction that America's liberty was dependent on our faithfulness to God's will and our trust in Providence.

Washington's God shows Washington not only as a man of resource, strength, and virtue, but also as a man with deeply held religious values. This new presentation of Washington-as a man whose religion guided his governance-will bring him into today's debates about the role of faith in government and will challenge everything we thought we knew about the inner life of the father of our country.

Reviews

• A True Believer, by Diana Furchtgott-Roth. New York Post March 12, 2006.
• Was George Washington a Christian? - "A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". Review by Al Zambone. Christianity Today: "Books & Culture" April 3, 2006.
• The Founding Believer, by Mark Tooley. The American Spectator May 2, 2006.
• Washington's God: Review & Commentary by Joseph Bottum (First Things "On The Square" February 14, 2006).

Related Discussion

• Washington's Faith and the Birth of America, by Michael Novak, Jana Novak. The American Enterprise May 2006.
• The Founding Fathers: Solving modern problems, building wealth and finding God, by David Liss. Washington Post June 11, 2006.
• "The Framers and the Faithful: How modern evangelicals are ignoring their own history", by Steven Waldman. Washington Monthly April 2006.
• Founder's faith, by Shelley Widhalm. Washington Times March 26, 2006.
• The Framers and the Faithful, discussion at Amy Welborn's Open Book March 18, 2006.
• Washington's Sun God: Reviewing a Review, by Michael Novak. Response to The New York Sun March 7, 2006).
• Washington's God: “The Beneficent Author of All the Good That Was, That Is, or That Will Be”, remarks by Jana Novak at AEI Book Forum. March 6, 2006; Who was Washington's God?, by Michael Novak. AEI Book Forum — March 6, 2006. Video of the AEI Forum on Washington's God, courtesy of the American Enterprise Institute.
• Tom Ashbrook's (WBUR, Boston) interview of Washington's God author Michael Novak and Gordon Wood, professor of history at Brown University Radio interview. Monday, Feb. 20, 2006. Windows or RealAudio format (or Mp3, via Peter ("The American Moderate").
• In Honor of the Father of Our Country - His Excellency, George Washington, Jay Andersen (Pro Ecclesia, Pro Familia, Pro Civitate).
• Divining W.: Inside Washington’s God - National Review interviews Michael and Jana Novak. February 20, 2006.
• On Providence: The Education of George Washington MichaelNovak.Net (1/17/2006)

* * *

• Prayer of Valley Forge May Be Legend or Tradition or a Fact, Yet It Remains Symbol of Faith, by Gilbert Starling Jones. The Picket Post, Published by the Valley Forge Historical Society, April, 1945, No. 9.

  In 1866, Henry Brueckner depicted Washington at prayer in a painting.

Nature and Grace, Novak and Schindler

The mode of Dr. Schindler’s critique of the so-called Murray/Whig position is largely theological, and one of the key targets of criticism is the Whig understanding of nature and grace. Professor Joel Garver provides a succinct précis of Dr. Schindler’s critique as put forth in Heart of the World, Center of the Church:

According to Schindler, this is not an interpretation and political system that is empty of theological content--this very conception of religious liberty as immunity from coercion through legal procedure presupposes a certain openness to some religious worldviews and not others (e.g., theocratic Islam). Furthermore, the theological content it does presuppose is not distinctively Christian since it posits a society that is basically neutral or indifferent in regard to God and transcendent values--but that is to say that the realm of nature (culture, society, the civil order) stands in an extrinsic relation to grace, rather than being intrinsically ordered to grace at its proper end.But is this an accurate portrayal of the Whig understanding of nature and grace?

I don't pretend to offer here a comprehensive account of the Whig position, merely two articles in which Michael Novak explains his understanding of the way grace works in nature and in history. First, from an encomium to Bernard Lonergan in the magazine Crisis (Memories of Bernard Lonergan Crisis February 1, 2003):

Let me pause to point out here that neither Aquinas nor Lonergan was imagining that there is a two-tier world, nature below like the cake and grace on top of it like the icing, or anything like that. On the contrary, both imagined that there is in reality and history only one world, all of it conceived and created in, by, and through the Divine Word, Verbum, Logos, and all of it redeemed by Him. The theory of grace and nature is a theoretical construct, designed to make sense of human experience both among those, like Aristotle, who knew nothing of the Verbum, and those like St. Augustine, who did know and wrote especially well both about the fall of human beings into sin and their need for healing. Fallen man is like an athlete who breaks his ankle: It needs to heal before he walks again -- and he is always in greater danger of reinjuring himself than he had been before he broke it. The theoretical construct of grace and nature should not be reified in such a way as to lead us to imagine two separate realities, nature here, grace “up there.” As Georges Bernanos wrote, and Yeats suggested, “Everything is grace,” and yet grace works in and through nature, which it penetrates as yeast penetrates dough.

How does grace penetrate nature? How can we see evidence of this? One great strength in the writings of Novak and Weigel is their willingness to look for concrete manifestations of their ideas in history. In an article on Jacques Maritain, Novak adopts the French philosopher’s view of the work of grace in history through non-Christian agents:

Yet Maritain does not say that Christianity exists in the world solely as the Church or the body of believers. Rather, he sees “Christianity as historical energy at work in the world. It is not in the heights of theology, it is in the depths of the secular conscience and secular existence that Christianity works in this fashion.” He is equally far from asserting that Christians brought modern democratic institutions into existence: “It was not given to believers in Catholic dogma but to rationalists to proclaim in France the rights of man and of the citizen, to Puritans to strike the last blow at slavery in America.” He gives credit — by schematic suggestion, not comprehensive detail — where credit is due: “Neither Locke nor Jean-Jacques Rousseau nor the Encyclopedists can pass as thinkers faithful to the integrity of the Christian trust.”(A Salute to Jacques Maritain The Catholic Writer: The Proceedings of the Wethersfield Institute 2 (1989))

Grace thus works even outside the visible boundaries of the church, and so, institutions that arise in cultures alien to it can nevertheless be ordered towards truth and goodness:

It is clear that Maritain considers the Christian message about the cry of the poor for justice to be a motor of human temporal life. He holds simultaneously that existing democratic ideas, traditions, and institutions were often championed in actual history by those who were non-Christians or even anti-Christian; and yet that, in building better than they knew, such persons were often generating in human temporal life important constructs whose foundations were not only consistent with Jewish and Christian convictions about the realities of ethical and political life but, in a sense, dependent on them. Pull out from under genuine democratic principles the beliefs of Judaism and Christianity about the transcendent dignity of the person and the human propensity to sin, and the existing edifice of democratic thought is exposed to radical doubt.

This is a very optimistic view. At least in theory I think it meets the demands of what Dr. Garver describes as “Schindler’s alternative”: “If we see grace as directing nature from within and drawing it to its proper, grace-given end, then the realm of nature must be seen as distinct from grace, but nevertheless, while distinct, always already situated within grace.” It’s up to more educated minds than mine to parse the theology and see if Novak and Schindler are very far part, at least on a theoretical and theological level. At first glance it seems that they are closer to each other than is commonly thought, and Novak’s fondness for Bernanos (he quotes him in many writings) is something he has in common with Dr. Schindler, who edits the Ressourcement series at Eerdmans, a publisher which also carries a book by Bernanos. In any case, I think these quotations at least add nuance to the common (and inaccurate) simplification that the Whigs see grace as a condiment which Christianizes the nature of liberal institutions.

Michael Novak's Memories of JPII; New Website by Rocco Buttiglione

From Michael Novak's website, remembrances by the Catholic philospher on his friendship with the Pope, with some great stories: discovering his mutual "Polish" ancestry"; the underground publication of The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism by the movement Solidarity, and meetings over dinner to discuss economics and Catholic social doctrine:

One night in the autumn of 1991 I was invited to have dinner with the Holy Father. It would be difficult to describe my excitement. I think I barely said a word at dinner, set for just five of us, as I recall: the Pope, his two secretaries, my Italian friend Rocco Buttiglione, and me. Rocco and I were planning a seminar on the free society, to help bring young Americans and Eastern Europeans together. He had been a friend of Karol Wojtyla for years, ever since their mutual philosophical work in Poland, well before the young bishop/philosopher was elected Pope. Rocco and the Pope did most of the talking — and joshing — that evening. The Pope did ask me what I would recommend as the best way to help the millions of poor whom he had just seen in Latin America. I don’t recall his being terribly convinced by my three points, telegraphically put forth. They had much to do with micro-enterprises, and changing education and the law to favor the starting of many small businesses. (Today I note with pleasure that, for instance, India and China between them have raised more than half a billion people out of poverty since 1980. So it can be done, where enterprise is permitted and rewarded.)

I do recall praising the Pope for the good words he had put into his recent letter-to-the-world, Centesimus Annus. As we were leaving, he told me he liked very much the article of mine that had been translated in the Polish Catholic paper Tygodnik Powszechny just that week. It had been translated from my lecture in London, on the theme of the shift in the Pope’s understanding of “capital” from Laborem Exercens (1981) and the 1991 letter ten years later. You understand my thought very well, he said generously — words that have warmed my hear ever since, in many a cold and difficult season.

In Laborem Exercens, he linked capital solely to things, to matter. In Centesimus Annus he pointed to the capital fostered within the human subject: human capital, in the form of knowledge, know-how, invention, and other fruitful economic habits. The virtues he listed are not unlike the habits Max Weber had pointed out in The Protestant Ethic, but with a new, original emphasis upon the creativity of the human person, made in the image of the Creator. A neat emphasis for a Pope living so near the Michelangelo ceiling of the Sistine chapel.

From many more meetings with the Pope, I have the impression that he was skeptical about my hopes for a creativity-informed and law-abiding capitalism, but interested. He and his secretaries used to press me quite hard, and test me and my friends, on this and other issues. We used to have lunch or dinner with him, not every year, maybe an extra time or two in a given blessed year, and nearly always on his days off, when there was a little more time and he had on his calendar no one more important or long-ago-scheduled.

"To the best of my knowledge," Novak recalls, "we at Crisis were the first to put the name "John Paul the Great" in print." I remember the publication of the Crisis Magazine special edition years ago -- 1997, to be exact -- with the cover proclaiming him "John Paul The Great." I still have it. It's a great issue, with stirring tributes by a host of Catholic authors. Worth getting if you can.

Novak's friend, the Italian Minister of Culture Rocco Buttiglione has started a new webpage -- www.pensarecristiano.org -- which tanslates as 'Thinking Christian.'

The Catholic news Agency blog Catholic Outsider has the details behind this fascinating figure, "Formed by the movement Communione e Liberazione and its late Founder, Msgr. Luigi Giussani, key advisor in the writing of Centesimus Annus," published in Crisis and by the Acton Institute . . .

WHAT?!? a member of 'Communion and Liberation' fraternizing with dreaded Catholic neocons and proponents of liberalism?

Say it is not so! ;-)

On "Liberalism" - Discussion w. Chris Burgwald

Chris Burgwald picks up on the conversation begun at La Nouvelle Theologie with the first in a series of posts elaborating on the reasons for disagreement with Michael Novak (together with Fr. Neuhaus, George Weigel, and Fr. Sirico). The first of these posts to Veritas is on the proposition: "The death of God for our times, for our culture, for us, is Liberalism".

The 'liberalism' which is condemned by Chris and David Jones (and those whom I'll refer to as 'The Schindler camp') is "characterized by the autonomy of the individual, which results in the individual as the primary focal point of every form of discourse: political, social, cultural, religious, etc," citing as an example the inordinant emphasis on "rights talk" in public discourse, on unrestrained human autonomy or individualism.

At the risk of stating the obvious, but there is nothing to be deplored in the mere affirmation of human rights -- George Weigel has recounted a story from the early 1980's, when Sir Michael Howard, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, suggested in a conversation that there had been two great twentieth-century revolutions: the first the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 (culminating in failure); the second the ongoing "evolution of the Catholic Church into the world's premier institutional defender of human rights," especially under the pontificate of Pope John Paul II.

In Memory and Identity, Pope John Paul II -- no shrinking violet when it comes to criticism of liberalism -- praised as "the positive fruit of the Enlightenment" the ideals of liberty, equality, fraternity, and a better understanding of human rights: the rights of man as well as of nations, "to maintain their own culture and exercise political sovereignty." He oberves the significant proximity of the French Revolution (July 14, 1789), the proclamation of the Polish constitution (May 3, 1791) and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America (July 4, 1776), and the "stimulating synthesis of the relation between Christianity and the Enlightenment" as found in the documents of the Second Vatican Council.

So, I think it is important to note the recognition of legitimate human rights by the contemporary Catholic Church, even as these are distinguished from the illusory rights born of a false notion of human autonomy (the disasterous judicial reasoning behind Roe v. Wade comes readily to mind).

Chris goes on to add that "individualism is not the only feature of liberalism: the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre is well-known for his critique of what he calls "the Enlightenment project."

MacIntyre uses this term to describe the attempt by Enlightenment philosophers to construct a 'public morality' accessible to reason alone, i.e. without any reference whatsoever to religion and acceptable to anyone with the basic ability to think. (MacIntyre convincingly demonstrates how such a project is an ultimately futile one.) This, too, tends to define liberalism broadly understood.

In "Beyond Liberalism: Human Dignity, the Free Society, and the Second Vatican Council" (pp. 29-58. Catholicism, Liberalism, and Communitarianism, Rowman & Littlefield, 1995) Kenneth L. Grasso reminds us that if we understand liberalism in the broad sense to consist of that which is "supportive of constitutionalism, limited government, the rule of law, etc., over and against absolutism," it would not be inappropriate to describe the political teaching of the Second Vatican Council as liberal -- what John Courtney Murray described as "a political commmitment, however discrete, to constitutional government" -- a "preferential option" for constitutional democracy (Grasso, p. 30).

But the other kind of liberalism -- that which emerged in the seventeenth century and became constitutive of modern Western thought, which Grasso summarizes as "that theory of man and society that combines a methodological rejection of teleology with an emphatic rejection of any notion of natural or God-given goals," is rightly to be condemned. It is this form of liberalism that is characterized by "a view of human beings as essentially sovereign wills ["unencumbered selves"], subject to no order of obligations not of their own creation, subject to no order of human ends that obligate independent of, and prior to, an act of free consent to strive for these ends." (Grasso, p. 45).

Chris goes on to note that liberalism in the sense he describes it "encompasses the vast majority of political discourse in our country today; virtually all of those people who describe themselves as liberal and conservative are actually liberals in this broad sense." He explains why it is considered the 'death of God' in modern times:

Now, why is liberalism understood in this sense the death of God for our times? Because of its amazing capacity to create and sustain (false) antagonistic dualisms, e.g. faith and reason; body and soul; church and state; religion and life. Note well: I'm certainly not denying that each element of each pair of terms is distinguishable from the other -- that's obviously true. My point here is that liberalism doesn't merely distinguish between (for example) faith and reason: rather, it puts them in opposition to one another at a fundamental level.

What we're talking about here is secularism: the view that denies religion's intrinsically pervasive nature. Secularism tries to create the "naked public square," i.e. to make religion a purely private matter without bearing and impact on the public life of a nation. I would argue that secularism is one of the logical consequences of liberalism, in spite of the fact that some liberals (e.g. conservative liberals) might themselves be vociferous opponents of secularism. In other words, there is a logic of liberalism which inexorably works itself out, whatever the positive and good intentions of individual liberals.

I find that definitions are key to this discussion. "Liberalism," as Fr. Neuhaus wryly notes in his response to Dr. Schindler, "is a wonderfully pliant term." It runs the gambit from the the laissez-faire economic liberalism (condemned by Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum) to the libertarianism "which remains in the largest part a thought experiment for college sophomores of all ages" -- and one has only to take a survey of the many varieties of liberalism through the ages to notice the distinctions between them.

A number of the sources I have mentioned this past week in the context of our discussion here and at La Nouvelle Theologie concern those scholars who demonstrate that the thought of our founding fathers on the interaction of 'faith and reason', 'church and state,' 'religion and life' is a far cry from the secularism of contemporary liberals. While the experience of strife between religions motivated them to establish a boundary between 'church and state', their writings reveal that they did not see them in mutual opposition. (Indeed, they would likely be rolling in their graves at the antics of the ACLU). Likewise, they demonstrate that the founding principles of this nation have far more in common with Catholic tradition than some today would care to admit.

Among such resources cited are: Fr. Hunter ("Catholics and the Republic"), Fr. John C. Rager ("Catholic Sources of the Declaration"), the reflections of Fr. John Courtney Murray, the contemmporary research of Michael Novak (On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding), and -- thanks to David Jones for the introduction -- Scott McDermott (on the person of Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence). Novak's On Two Wings stands out as one of the best compilations of the founders' real thought on religion in public life -- one that he "wanted to write for some forty years," if not for his ignorance, "convential (but mistaken) wisdom" and the many "erroneous perceptions . . . unconsciously drunk from public perception." I heartily recommend it.

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There are two articles by Fr. Neuhaus which were written in response to the criticism of Dr. Schindler in Heart of the World:

• Schindler's Complaint First Things 74 (June/July 1997): 68-86.
• The Liberalism of John Paul II First Things 73 (May 1997): 16-21.

In the latter post, Neuhaus expresses a concern with the sweeping condemnation of liberalism and its implications for Catholic engagement in the public square:

"The burden of the present book," he writes, "is to suggest that liberalism cannot so easily claim the moral authority of Catholicism, and, at the same time, to indicate why an increasing liberal hegemony throughout the world should be viewed not altogether with favor but, on the contrary, with a certain alarm." Well, yes, if, like Schindler, one puts the worst possible construction on liberalism' meaning the American founding, liberal democracy, and market economics. And that is what Schindler tends to do. Liberalism is condemned tout court as a dogmatic system premised upon radical individualism, the autonomous self, calculated self-interest, and human creativity as opposed to receptivity to God's grace. In sum, Schindler starts out by agreeing with those who construe the liberal tradition -- and its chief historical instantiation, the American experiment -- along rigorously secularist and un-Christian (maybe anti-Christian) lines. Those of us who defend the "Murray Project" might easily turn around and charge Schindler with selling out the American store to the enemies of the faith. I am not about to join him in giving up the argument and letting Laurance Tribe or the ACLU define the meaning of liberal democracy.

Both essays are well worth reading, addressing the conflicting understandings of liberalism and the Catholic Church's engagement with the liberal tradition in the thought of John Paul II (particularly in Centesimus Annus (which Neuhaus rightly points out is not so much a document on economic questions as it is about the nature of the free society).

As there is too much in Neuhaus' dual response to simply recount in the space of this blog, I recommend reading them with Chris Burgwald's post in mind, along with the recent discussions with David Jones and company.

Next Post: Religious Convictions in Public Discourse

Responding to David Jones' "Disagreement with Novak & other Whig Thomists"

David Jones has posted his "Disagreement with Novak & other Whig Thomists" (Oct. 21, 2005):

A friend asked the following question to me.

"Can you articulate in one short paragraph your core disagreement with the thinking of [Michael] Novak? I want your words, not a list of books I should read. Just a succinct expression of your disagreement."

My response was the following seven points.

1. The death of God for our times, for our culture, for us, is Liberalism.
2. Democracy is the not the best form of government.
3. Capitalism is not the best form of economics.
4. Novak does not adequately deal with the centrality of the nature-grace question, which directly impacts humanity and therefore our culture. He therefore uses a poor ontology (onto-logic) of the prudence required to deal with the political and economic practices and structures of modern-day society or man.
5. The War in Iraq is unjust. It did not meet the Just War criteria.
6. Big business destroys or lessens our humanity.
7. St. Thomas Aquinas is no Whig.

David's comments (or, rather, assertions) are very succinct indeed, although having "chewed on them" a little I think I'd prefer clarity and precision over ambiguity, even if it means for David to take some time to develop and "flesh out" his position in a series of posts.

Nevertheless, as he wishes for a response, what follows is a modified form of my email to him and one of our mutual friends, excerpted from prior correspondence and slightly revised (and posted in the comments to the post in question):

1) "The death of God for our times, for our culture, for us, is Liberalism"

To which one is compelled to ask: What kind of liberalism? What kind of liberty? As we know, the term itself can refer to a broad range of positions with often conflicting philosophies:

[T]he word liberalism is a wonderfully pliant term. It is used to label a range of philosophical and religious positions, many of which have little in common. Both the political theorist John Rawls and the economist Friedrich Von Hayek are commonly described as liberals. Yet, it is difficult to imagine two individuals whose views on many matters are more opposed to each other. . . . it makes little sense to ask whether a set of proposed practices are "liberal" or, for that matter, "conservative." Reasoned inquiry should ask whether an idea is reasonable and threfore true, or unreasonable and thus untrue.

-- Dr. Samuel Gregg [introduction, On Ordered Liberty].

Further reading on the ambiguities of the term "liberalism':

• Maciej Zieba: "The Liberalism That We Need, First Things 40 (February 1994): 23-27.
• Michael Therrien: John Paul II’s Use of the Term Neo-Liberalism in Ecclesia in America. Delivered at the Pontifical College Josephinum April 8, 2000.
• Fr. Neuhaus: The Liberalism of John Paul II First Things 73 (May 1997): 16-21.

David / Schindler / AT's see liberalism as very much wedded to postmodernism [death of God, absence of meaning, nihilism] -- WT's contend for a liberalism rightly criticiqued by the Church, achieved in part by a recovery of the original vision of our founding fathers.

Here's one distinction: for philosophers like Alisdair MacIntyre (After Virtue -- another good book), David Schindler, etc., the Enlightenment is done and over with. As MacIntyre points out in Whose Justice, Which Rationality we're in a fragmented age of conflicting worldviews, even to address concepts like "Reason", "Truth," "Justice," et al. is to deal with clashing understandings and interpretations derived from conflicting traditions.

Postmodernism reigns supreme, so the battle is squarely that of postmodernism/nihilism/relativism vs. Christianity. Novak's attempt to even research and present the original vision of our founding fathers (On Two Wings) is an exercise in futility, because -- they would say -- who really cares at this point?

The WT's see the inclination toward postmodernism as stemming from the academies and intellectuals (remember in the questions at the end of On Two Wings (pp. 111-113) where Novak ponders how we got from there to here? -- the secular interpretation of America's founding challenged by Novak's research didn't happen out of nowhere. He speaks of the "Europeanization of American intellectual life" and a concerted effort in the late 40's and 50's to systematically secularize American life and the interpretation of our nation's founding.

Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind -- another must-read -- describes the decay of the universities during the latter twentieth century as the infection of relativism sets into academia. Camille Paglia (a militant feminist) is sometimes fun to read because despite her antipathy towards Christianity she stands clearly opposed to her colleagues obsession with European postmodernism (Derrida, Foucault, etc.) and the loss of even a basic knowledge of the bible.

Dr. Schindler maintains that this is not simply the universities' fault -- that America itself, the midwest, the 'red states', everybody -- is hopelessly infected by the malaise of liberalism / relativism. We're not so "religious" a nation as we appear. There is some truth to this, but I think they tend to go overboard in their criticism and are under-appreciative of the distinctly positive elements in American life or the liberal tradition upon which it is founded . . . yes, even here in New York. ;-) [Note: Michael Therrien's piece on neo-liberalism responds in part to Dr. Schindler's criticisms, as well as those of the Houston Catholic Worker].

"Democracy is not the best form of government."

In one of the final chapters of George Weigel's Soul of the World: Notes on the Future of Public Catholicism he discusses the transition of the Church's relationship with democracy from hostility to internal critique -- see my post presenting Weigel on this very topic, blogged some weeks ago.

My own response here to David would be "relative to what?" -- It's worth noting that in Ecclesia in America which was recently cited by David/Hand, JPII conveys his preference for democratic institutions. I would imagine that Pope Benedict harbors a similar preference. This is not to say that our present form of democracy is the most acceptable -- the Acton Institute published an excellent essay by Cardinal Pell in Markets & Morality (Vol. 7, No. 2) titled "Is there only secular democracy? Imagining other possibilities for the Third Millenium"; the article is not yet available online, but it's worth the read.

Fr. Neuhaus did a three part series a couple years back in First Things ("The Public Square" Oct.-Dec. 1999), in which he presented 10 propositions on Catholicism and democracy:

. . . A fourth proposition is this: Democracy is and always will be unsatisfactory. Winston Churchill is often quoted as saying that "democracy is the worst system of government known to man, except for all the others that have been tried." That is not everything that can be said for democracy, but it is a not unimportant thing to be said. For the Christian, and indeed for every human being who aspires to live in the truth, the only satisfactory order is the Kingdom of God promised in the eschatological consummation of history. All our politics, including democratic politics, is, at most, penultimate. The state functions in the sphere of the penultimate. The church points to and anticipates the ultimate, the Kingdom of God. Christians live in both spheres and therefore are, in the words of the second century Letter to Diognetus, "resident aliens" in any earthly city.

Although all are unsatisfactory, all orderings of the earthly city are not equal. Democracy is a relative good, but it is superior to other orders because: 1) it is the form of government that, under the conditions of modernity, best accommodates the Christian understanding of human dignity; 2) it best fosters and protects the exercise of basic human rights; 3) it provides an enlarged sphere for the exercise of personal responsibility and the pursuit of the common good; 4) in its economic dimension, it best accords with human creativity and approximate justice; and, most important, 5) it is institutionally open to the future, including the ultimate future that is the Kingdom of God. On the last point, there is a great advantage in a political system that is transparently conducted by, and held accountable to, distinctly ungodlike human beings who freely avail themselves of their freedom to air their discontents with the system. This is a valuable prophylactic against the temptation to deify democracy or mistake it for the Kingdom of God. [SOURCE]

I would personally agree with Neuhaus' take, which I think is a solidly Catholic take on democracy. I think that those who wish to establish something otherwise -- even an integration of Catholicism with the state or variations thereof -- do so in ignorance of the lessons of history. And I think any reasonable alternative must take into account the reality of a pluralistic culture: America's founding and model was born of that reality -- Catholics and Protestants and Jews and agnostics and atheists in close proximity, neighbors, friends -- like it or not, we're stuck with each other. How do we then live?

3. Capitalism is not the best form of economics.

Again, relative to what? -- I think at some point we should bring in distributism into the conversation, as that appears to be the proposal of Stephen Hand, Thomas Storck and friends. (David has posted some links on this subject already). But nevertheless, here we can ask the same question: "what kind of capitalism"? -- As we can see, both Novak and JPII qualify their endorsement, and -- the WT's would maintain -- they tend to cohere.

Schindler faults capitalism and Novak's take because the proposal that we ought to act out of "enlightened self interest" runs counter to communio theology, in that it does not adequately manifest Christian spirituality and self-sacrifice.

David Schindler: "There is a single basic spirituality for all Christians, and Mary is the model of that spirituality. . . . for Christians, economic life, like all other aspects of life, must be formed from within the liberation effected by God in Jesus Christ" -- exactly how does economic life manifest Christian liberation? [Heart of the World p. 92]

Novak maintains a recognition of legitimate self-interest in contrast to avarice; his understanding of economics, and how business ought to work, is derived from an appreciation of Adam Smith and Alexander Tocqueville; "self-interest rightly understood". Here's the difference:

Adam Smith:

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from the regard of their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity [philanthropy] but to their self-love, and never talk to them of their own necessities but to their advantages."

Thus the baker bakes a good loaf of bread because that is the way to ensure profit. The good both of the product and of the other (the potential consumer) is thus intrumentalized in the baker's self-interest.

David Schinder in Heart of the World, on Adam Smith's "baker":

A baker trying to live out his Christianity in his life as a businessperson, to imbue the reality of his economic life with the Gospel - in a word, to live in the spirit of the "new" liberation theory and praxis indicated in Centesimus Annus - would thus attempt to order profit differently from the way suggested by Smith. He would seek first to make a loaf of bread that was intrinsically good - in terms of its taste and health-producing qualities and the like - and he would seek to do this from the beginning for the sake of being of service to others in society, of enhancing their health and well-being. To be sure, he would recognize profit as a necessary condition of his continuing ability to provide this service to others. He would recognize that he was realizing his own good in this service to others. But that is just the point: his legitimate concern for profit, and his own "self-interest," would be integrated from the beginning and all along the way into the intention of service.

[See further elaboration on this point by Kevin Miller and relevant citations from Heart of the World.

I'm still pondering with this critique of Novak, because while it makes sense on paper, I'm not sure Novak / Smith are entirely wrong in their observation and judgement of what occurs.

Common sense dictates that it is indeed, in the merchant's "self interest" to please his customers, to build a good, reliable product, to behave with integrity and honesty. Novak would argue that these are indeed moral virtues and worth lauding -- and that the practice of business insofar as it contributes to the cultivation of integrity, honesty, fairness -- is worth promoting. Schindler, I think, would likely say this is all very well and good, but in the end it is simply not enough -- because business as so conceived fails to embody a distinctly Christlike spirit of "other-centered love."

Putting it in personal terms . . . sometimes when I come home from work I give my friend Ali a call. He's the owner of a Pakistani-Indian restaurant, with whom I'm good friends. I've eaten there enough (dine-in and delivery) that he knows exactly what I like. Now, while Ali and I are good friends, in the preparation and fulfillment of my order I suspect he is acting in his own "self-interest", that is to say: in preparing the food and/or instructing his staff, I daresay his chief motivation would be: earning a profit = paying the bills = feeding his wife and son (who I often see at the restaurant).

For Ali to act with this motivation in mind -- I would not necessarily condemn this basic matter of interest as a bad thing.

Here's my point: can we say that the baker in Adam Smith's case is acting purely to his own advantage? Or that my friend Ali is acting purely for the sake of profit? -- I'm not going to deny the fact that there are those who are motivated by greed and an improper sense of self-love, as one can witness by the financial scandals we read about in the paper and tales of luxury and extravagance, but it is also the case that a merchant, in running his business, does so out of consideration not for the dollar alone but for the welfare of his family.

In response to Schindler's philosophical critique, I would have to ask whether this manner of "self-interest" and Schindler's Christlike selflessness (characterized by a desire to make "an intrinsically good" plate of food "in service to others") is truly an 'either/or' matter or possibly "both/and"? Are they mutually exclusive, or can one indeed act with legitimate self-interest?

Is it not the case that when we scrutinize the "self-interest" of the businessman we see a mixture of self-regard and concern for family? That making a profit is desired not for profit itself but for other ends in mind -- in the case of my friend Ali: paying the bills, making a living, raising his child, providing roof and shelter for his family. In this light Ali's "self interest" would have more in common with Schindler's "other-centered love" than Schindler himself suspects, and what appears at first glance.

4. Novak does not adequately deal with the centrality of the nature-grace question, which directly impacts humanity and therefore our culture. He therefore uses a poor ontology (onto-logic) of the prudence required to deal with the political and economic practices and structures of modern-day society or man.

Don't have time to unpack this now but again, I believe this is found in Schindler's Heart of the World. At the same time, I think David could do well to flesh this out in his own words (less-abstract) and make it his own argument, posting it to his blog in his own words.

5. The War in Iraq is unjust. It did not meet the Just War Criteria.

While David merely asserts but fails to substantiate his argument, I think we've debated this ad nauseum. Granted, certain parties see the neocon's support of the war as part and parcel of their "Americanism" and wilfull disobedience to Rome -- Neuhaus, Novak, Weigel, "cafetaria catholics" no better than the rest. Other parties disagree (and not just the 'neocons').

The difficulty here is that the just war debate and Iraq include their own range of authors and background reading -- for instance, the work of just war scholar James Turner Johnson (who is coming out with what appears to be an excellent book on this very topic), Weigel's Tranquillitas Ordinis: The Present Failure and Future Promise of American Catholic Thought on War and Peace (1987) is also a must-read (in my opinion); also required to really debate this intelligently is an extensive knowledge of foreign relations and U.S. - Iraqi - Middle East history, et al. . . . in other words, a body of material which, I think, does not bear directly upon the "Augustinian-Thomist / Whig - Thomist" debate. Unless David is prepared to make the claim that ressourcement theology entails a specific stand with respect to the foreign policy of the Bush administration, I think that given the scope of this blog the war in Iraq is of a lower priority than other issues.

However, "warblogger" that I am, one may find this topic discussed on my blog Just War?, as well as my compilation of sources (pro/con) on this subject.

Finally, that said, Novak wouldn't have been my first pick as exponent of the Catholic just war analysis of Iraq.

6. Big business destroys or lessens our humanity.

Given that these comments are made with relation to the person of Michael Novak, I wonder whether David here is implicitly agreeing with the Zwicks' characterization of Novak as an "Enron apologist"?

7. St. Thomas Aquinas is no Whig.

David states the obvious, and neither Michael Novak nor Lord Acton would maintain that Aquinas was literally a "Whig." Novak discusses this at length pp. 120-123 of On Two Wings what Acton meant by this:

"Aquinas is called the first Whig because of the centrality he gave to human liberty in nature and history. The human person, he thought, is the most beautiful creature in all creation, the only one created as an end in itself. In his or her liberty the person is made in the image of the Creator. Aquinas further saw that the political power arises from the consent of the governed. . . . he also taught the traditional vision of limited government, limited both by moral law and by constitutional devices such as the mixed regime, and that justice sometimes demands that a tyrant be deposed."

Novak goes on to discuss the canonist appropriation of Aquinas' thought in the development of the idea of natural right as presented in Brian Tierny's study The idea of Natural Right: Studies on Natural Rights, Natural Law, and Church Law 1150 - 1625 -- for Tearney, to suggest that modern rights theories are derived entirely from Hobbes [and Enlightenment philosophers] ignore "the history of the concept of jus naturale before the seventeenth century."

I haven't read Tierny's book, nor have I (yet) read Rowland's Culture and Thomist Tradition after Vatican II -- which David recommends and is certainly on my reading list, after I purchase Kraynak -- but suffice to say the suggestion that Aquinas "was the first Whig" calls for further clarification. As David points out, I've dealt with this question in my post Aquinas: First Whig? (Religion and Liberty [blog] Sept. 21, 2005).

Michael Novak, Circa. 1969, 1982

". . . the hollowness of so much of American life; the vacant eyes watching television and drinking beer; the tired eyes of the men on the commuter train; the efficient eyes of the professor and manager, the sincere eyes of the television politician. Americans . . . do not know who they are, only what they are useful for; they are bored and apathetic because they are manipulated; they are violent because they secretly resent the lies they are forced to live. Unable to live with themselves, Americans level the earth, build and destroy, attempt to master matter and space and human history. Americans play God."

- Michael Novak, 'A Theology for Radical Politics' 1969;

That this was a superficial, unfair, and ideological description of real Americans became clear to me when I looked more closely at my neighbors and companions, and less at literary conventions.

- Michael Novak, 'Spirit of Democratic Capitalism', 1982

Leo Strauss and the Neoconservative Cabal

David Jones has posted a link to Dr. Hubert's "The New Stealth World View, what looks to be an extended indictment of The Straussian Neocon Cabal [tm] which has infiltrated the Bush Administration, seduced Evangelical Christians and Catholics (Fr. Neuhaus, George Weigel, Michael Novak) alike, imbedded itself in not one but both mainstream political parties, launched a war of aggression against the sovereign nation of Iraq, and seeks to establish an American Empire by the spread a 21st Century Secular Paganism around the globe.

David seeks my comment on this piece -- my time is limited, and I have not yet read Andrew J. Bacevich's The New American Militarism (Oxford UP, Feb. 2004), upon which Hubert grounds much of his argument. Consequently the comments I make here will be rather brief (I also do not want to go too far afield of the specific purpose of this blog). In any case, I hope to explain why I think it difficult to 1) portray neoconservatives as 1) collectively adhering to a specific economic platform (besides a loose endorsement of the free market); 2) portray neoconservatives as a Straussian conspiracy with a stranglehold on the Bush administration.

First, I would like to say that Dr. Hubert's manner of constructing an argument leaves something to be desired, given as it weaves one allegation after another which simply begs for clarification and substantiation. Consider the following:

"neoconservative thinking embraces the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill" . . .

"Neoconservative economic principles repudiate the Natural Law and thus are largely incompatible with Catholic teaching in the economic arena" . . .

"In the economic realm neoconservatives are also Darwinian. [Footnote: "In contradistinction to paleoconservatives who while economically competitive had a basic historical commitment to the Judeo-Christian ethic, including fixed notions of right and wrong as well as fair-play."] Most are devoted to the unbridled free market capitalism of Adam Smith where brute “market forces” are allowed (unfettered) to determine the landscape. [Footnote: 'This is obviously incompatible with Catholic social teaching.']"

I could quote further, but the above should suffice as a demonstration. Perhaps I am alone in my resentment, but I find the use of blanket generalizations here more than a little frustrating.

Coincidentally, it was on the same day that David referred this article to me that I had just finished The Neocon Reader (Grove Press, Jan. 9, 2005), in which I came across several articles which might lead one to question some assumptions made by Dr. Hubert.

For example, let's unpack the following paragraph:

. . . Catholic teaching holds that both communism and unbridled capitalism are morally evil since they are destructive of basic human dignity. Free Market Capitalism must be “managed” in light of the principles of the Natural Law and be sensitive to the true nature of “man” as created in the Imago Dei in order to be just.[footnote: "this includes a proper balance between solidarity and subsidiarity as well as an equitable distribution of the world’s limited resources."]

So far so good. I think that if Dr. Hubert bothered to look, he would find some affinities with this proposal in the writings of Neuhaus, Novak, Weigel, Sirico, Buttiglione, etc. There may be some haggling over how the market ought to be "managed" -- but as they share an appreciation of John Paul II's thought there may be some basis for mutual agreeement (or, at the very least, constructive dialogue). So, on the whole, a good start to this paragraph. Moving on . . .:

Neoconservative economic principles repudiate the Natural Law and thus are largely incompatible with Catholic teaching in the economic arena.[9] This explains why Americans tolerate the consumption and export of pornography in ever increasing numbers. There is absolutely no inhibition when it comes to generating income whether the so called “free enterprise is morally licit or not. The objectification of women and the young is encouraged (as part of inter-state commerce and ever larger profits; both being instrumentalized through seductive television, “bill-board” ads and motion pictures in order to maximize economic growth). All of this is perfectly compatible with Darwinian neoconservative economic policy and rabid unbridled free market capitalism. This is an example of utilizing persons not as “subjects” deserving of basic human dignity and respect but as objects to be used, abused and discarded (even secular Kantians should cringe).

It seems to me that Dr. Hubert's argument pressupposes a collective adherence by neoconservatives to a specific economic philosophy or platform -- if this is the case, one might request specific citations from the key neoconservatives in question. Furthermore, as he charges that the neoconservatives have seduced various Catholic scholars into their number, I would expect Dr. Hubert to demonstrate how these individuals have given an unqualified endorsement of "the unbridled free market capitalism of Adam Smith" and the philosophy of John Stuart Mill.

Turning to The Neocon Reader, Adam Wolfson, in "Conservatives and Neoconservatives", compares three conservative approaches - traditionalism, libertarianism, and neoconservatism. He makes the following observation:

In contrast to the paleoconservative and the traditionalist, the libertarian is entirely at home in today’s world. He takes his bearings from John Locke, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and such twentieth-century social thinkers as Friedrich Hayek. The libertarian spirit is neither backward-looking nor meliorative. It is progressive, and aims at expanding economic freedom and individual choice ever-forward. Libertarians oppose almost all regulation, whether of markets or morals.

It is arguable whether libertarianism is in fact a variety of conservative thought. Hayek once wrote an essay explaining why he was not a conservative, and Milton Friedman has always insisted that he is a nineteenth-century liberal, not a conservative. But there is at this late date no point in playing semantics and quibbling over labels and definitions. From the 1950s to the present, libertarianism has been an important and influential - arguably the most influential - stream of thought on the Right, informing both Republican policy making and conservative ideology more generally. . . .

Wolfson goes on to chart significant points of distinction between libertarians and neoconservatives in their understanding of freedom and its moral boundaries, the limits of Big Government, etc., all of which lead me to question whether Dr. Hubert is not being to hasty in lumping the two together.

One might raise the observation that Catholic scholar like Michael Novak does seem to bridge this theoretical gap -- Novak is a fellow of what Wolfson categorizes as the economically-libertarian institution The American Enterprise Institute; he appreciates the work of Friederich Hayek (although not uncritical of his weaknesses); however, he draws equally, if not more, from Lord Acton, Alexis de Tocqueville, Jacques Maritain and John Courtney Murray.

Do Americans as a people "tolerate the consumption and export of pornography in ever increasing numbers"? -- Pornography is a great evil in our society, of that there is no question. But to imply that neoconservatism necessarily entails a "hands-off" approach to pornography out of deference to the free market (or, rather, "unbridled capitalism") is misleading. If we take for granted Dr. Hubert's chief allegation, we presently have a "neo-con" infested presidential administration that is concerned about the spread of pornography, having established a Obscenity Prosecution Task Force in May 2005, with Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales making it a top priority.

In "The Neoconservative Persuasion" (Weekly Standard Volume 008, Issue 47 August 2003), Irving Kristol, the very "godfather of neoconservatism" himself, contends that "it is only to a degree that neocons are comfortable in modern America. The steady decline in our democratic culture, sinking to new levels of vulgarity, does unite neocons with traditional conservatives -- though not with those libertarian conservatives who are conservative in economics but unmindful of the culture."

If I may recommend to Dr. Hubert another article from the Neocon Reader: "Pornography, Obscenity and the Case for Censorship" (pp. 167-180). It is not a specifically Christian argument (Kristol is, after all, a secular Jew), but he does raise good points about the debasement and alienation of humanity in a pornographic culture and the danger that pornography and/or obscenity poses to the establishment of a democracy as our founding fathers conceived it. He even manages to employ C.S. Lewis. Amusing enough, Kristol in this case was writing in response to an editorial in the New York Times, which had taken the laissez-faire position of letting the market sort it out.

To summarize my concern, I think that sweeping generalizations and allegations of this nature render Dr. Hubert's argument less effective and invites further confusion. Perhaps a reading of Andrew Bacevich's The New American Militarism will bring the light of clarity, but I have to wonder if he is not making the common enough mistake of using "neo-conservative" as a catch-all term for anybody supportive of the foreign policy of the Bush administration. On this note see Think Again: Neocons, by Max Boot. (Foreign Policy Jan/Feb 2004).

* * *

One last aspect I'd like to touch on, and already this post is getting far too long and afield of the themes of this particular blog. Dr. Hubert makes the following claim:

At its core, neoconservatism embraces a Darwinian (survival of the fittest) mentality (epistemologically, metaphysically and morally) in which the historical reality of evil is recognized as foundational, the answer to which is overwhelming power (military and economic) and deception[4] of the masses.

Dr. Hubert credits this Machivellian approach to the influence of Professor Leo Strauss:

The history of American Neoconservatism arguably dates to the early 20th century and several academic German/Jewish intellectuals including Professor Leo Strauss who was purportedly a secular Zionist (Professor of Political Philosophy, University of Chicago) the philosophical progenitor of many contemporary public policy elites including several neoconservative Bush administration officials and other members of the Washington establishment in both political parties. Strauss was an avid opponent of modern liberalism having been an admirer of Martin Heidegger and by extension Nietzsche’s philosophy (itself Darwinian). It was later developed by several first generation neoconservatives including Norman Podhoretz (for many years editor of Commentary) and Irving Kristol. Later, in the second generation came Irving’s son William (now editor of Commentary’s “replacement” The Weekly Standard), Michael Ledeen, Robert Kagan, Charles Krauthammer and Richard Perle among others. . . .

Dr. Hubert cites as his source for this startling revelation Jim Lobe's sketchy article, “Leo Strauss' Philosophy of Deception”, AlterNet. May 19, 2003, which in turn is largely based on a polemical work by Shadia Drury (Leo Strauss and the American Right).

I'll confess that I'm not directly acquainted with the thought of Prof. Strauss or Shadia Drury, and in this post I'm very much reliant on those who are familiar with their works. Drury's work on Strauss, however, appears to be regarded with squeals of glee from Bush-haters (confirming their worst suspicions about the Right) and cautious skepticism or outright derision by serious readers of Strauss -- for starters, see Ken Masugi's review "A Leo Straussian Conspiracy Washington Times Feb. 4, 1998).

I also stumbled across this blog entitled "Leo Strauss and the Politics of the Present", founded by Jon Feinberg and a liberal collective with the ambition of "focusing on the political and philosophical writings of Leo Strauss in an attempt to create a critical history of the forces that contributed to the emergence of the current conservative stranglehold on American politics and American thinking" (brevity, it seems, is not their forte). For reasons as yet unknown (short attention span? internal group rivalries? censorship under the Patriot Act?) the reading project lasts all of three months, with Mr. Feinberg urging readers in his last post to "read Drury cautiously" (Dec. 22, 2004): "So, I've finally made it into Drury's book, and, the further in I venture, the less impressed I am. . . .")

In any case, much of what I've read in connection with researching Hubert's charge strongly suggests that while Straussians did have a prevalent role in the Reagan administration and helped to establish a principled case for American anti-communism, the influence of Strauss on the foreign policy of the present Bush administration is rather questionable, as is the portrayal of Leo Strauss as "grand architect" of neoconservative thought.

I'd like to address the reasoning behind Hubert's assertion that Strauss "was an avid opponent of modern liberalism having been an admirer of Martin Heidegger and by extension Nietzsche's philosophy (itself Darwinian)." Now, a great many folk could be construed as being "avid opponents of modern liberalism" or critical of modernity: David Schindler, Christopher Lasch, Alisdair MacIntyre, to name a few. To predicate Strauss' opposition to liberalism on his appreciation of Martin Heidegger seems to me rather specious, since nothing is offered to clarify exactly what Strauss admired about Heidegger or Nietzsche.

Further investigation would reveal that Strauss (who was a student of Heidegger) was impressed by his intellectual prowess (Strauss remarked of Heidegger "I had never seen before such seriousness, profundity, and concentration in the interpretation of philosophic texts"), and yet went on to protest Heidegger's capitulation and subordination of his philosophy to National Socialism. Strauss was likewise concerned by the prevalence of relativism, nihilisma and radical historicism in contemporary German philosophy and the inability of the social sciences to establish a bulwark against totalitarianism.

Kenneth R. Weinstein elaborates on Strauss' concern with Heidegger in "Philosophic Roots: The Role of Leo Strauss, and the War in Iraq" (The Neoconservative Reader pp. 199-212):

Strauss saw liberalism threatened theoretically by the philosophically informed belief, developed through modernity, that unaided human reason could not find permanent principles. Hitherto, Western thought had been shaped by what Strauss characterized as the tension between two most compelling alternatives for developing a comprehensive account of the whole: reason and revelation, or as Strauss put it figeratively, Athens and Jerusalem. Though Strauss left the Orthodox Judaism in which he was raised as a youth, he took the Bible seriously, saw revelation as offering the firmest foundation for morality, and criticized the atheism of the Enlightenment's more strident figures.

After early modern political philosophy, especially in the Enlightenment, unmasked the claims of revelation in the name of reason, late modernity took to unmasking the claims of reason. The growing importance ascribed to history in philosophy by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) meant that nature was no longer a standard for man. The rise of historical consciousness was especially a threat to the U.S., a regime based on the unalienable rights ascribed to man by America's Founding Fathers. Radical historicism, as seen in the writings of Friederich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Martin Heideggar (1889-1976), made the defense of intellectual rationalism and democratic republicanism increasingly difficult. Nietzsche's view that beliefs are values, mere creations, paved the way to cultural relativism as well as to nihilism.

In the face of the crisis of the West, in particular historicism and relativism, Strauss turned to the great authors of the past. In contrast to most contemporaries, Strauss sought to understand these thinkers as they understood themselves, not assuming that their ideas wer shaped or limited by the times in which they lived . . .

Mars' Hill Audio (Christian journal) profiles Strauss and this turn to the classical philosophers:

Strauss's most famous work is Natural Right and History (1950), in which he documents the rise and fall of the idea of natural right, or what is right by nature. Contemporary social science, Strauss argues, embraces both relativism and the distinction between fact and value. Thus social scientists today believe their work must be entirely value-free and objective. But, Strauss contends, this gives us no basis for the ultimate principles we choose. In keeping with his ancient-verses-modern dichotomy, the distinction between classical and modern natural right is of great significance to Strauss in Natural Right and History. Classical natural right claims the good life for man to be "the life that is in accordance with the natural order of man's being, the life that flows from a well-ordered or healthy soul . . . The perfection of man's nature." However, beginning with Hobbes, modern natural right finds the possibility of man's perfection wholly impractical, instead championing the instinct of self-preservation and the rights of the individual.

Weinstein's article further serves to counter the liberal portrayal of Strauss as "neoconservative war propagandist from the grave". According to Weinstein, while there are indeed distinct Straussian elements in the positions of some those supporting the war, one could just as well employ Strauss in building an intellectual case against it:

"Though many prominent Straussians supported the Iraq war in some fashion, a number of Straussians expressed doubts, both privately and publicly. In fact, there seem to be numerous theoretical justifications in Strauss' own understanding of politics to think that the anti-utopian Strauss might have been skeptical of parts of the enterprise of the war -- especially the notion that regime change would help, as some of the more exuberant supporters of the war believed, to bring democracy to Iraq."

Thomas G. West provides an example of a Straussian argument against regime-change in excellent fashion in Leo Strauss and American Foreign Policy The Claremont Review of Books Volume IV, Number 3 Summer 2004).

There are a number of other good articles to explore Strauss' thought as well as his relationship with / influence on the neoconservatives (and conservatives of other stripes) which I've recommended below.

* * *

In closing, I'd like to extend my sincere thanks to Dr. Hubert (and Stephen Hand). If not for them, I may never have been inspired to research this particular conspiracy or the works of Dr. Strauss.

Although Strauss does not appear to have a great influence (if any) on the thought of the distinctively Catholic "neoconservatives" (it was pointed out to me that Novak mentions Strauss' Natural Right and History briefly in On Two Wings, only in approving Brian Tierney's criticism of Strauss' theory of natural right), he nevertheless strikes me as a thinker I should becoming minimally acquainted with.

I wish to recognize the post Iraq: Just War?, following up on a recent discussion between Chris Burgwald and Dr. Hubert, which addresses in part Dr. Hubert's position on the war in Iraq and Catholic just war tradition. (Readers are also invited to peruse "The Catholic Just War Tradition and the War in Iraq" website for further resources on this important debate).

Finally, with respect to Dr. Hubert's liberal application of the "neocon" label, I think it would be beneficial to "tighten up" his case (as well as a guide to further discussion) by coming to a more concise definition -- that is to say, laying out specific criteria by which one can accurately identify a "neoconservative" and/or a "Catholic neoconservative" -- including a substantiated list of "neoconservative principles" operative in U.S. economic/foreign policy.

* * *

Related Links on the Straussian Neoconservative Cabal

• Straussian.Net - a good place to start, if anywhere. The author, Jeffrey R. Wilson, has done a good job of documenting what he calls the "Straussian Conspiracy Wave of '03" (April - June 2003). I'd say Hubert & co. are a couple years too late?

• What was Leo Strauss Up To?, by Steven Lenzner & William Kristol. The Public Interest Fall 2003:

  The only way to begin to understand Leo Strauss’s political thought is by studying his writings. This may seem a simple rule of common sense. Yet a glance at the current controversy over Strauss’s supposed influence on contemporary American politics and foreign policy suggests that this rule is easily ignored.

  The controversy turns on a legitimate question: “What was Strauss up to?” - or, more precisely, “What was Strauss’s intention?” But it would be misleading to attempt to understand Strauss by ascribing to him an influence, whether beneficial or nefarious, on current policy debates, and then inferring from the alleged influence what his aims really were. It makes far more sense to turn first to Strauss himself - that is, to his writings - in order to understand his political teaching. Then one might evaluate his intentional as well as inadvertent influence on today’s policy debates. . . .

• Leo Strauss Natural Right and History (1953), by Hadley Arkes. First Things 101 (March 2000): 39-40. More of a reflection than a review of the book itself, but hey, it's Arkes (i.e., worth reading).

• Leo Strauss: Conservative Mastermind, by Robert Locke. A critical appraisal of the philosopher and his ideas -- absent the hystericism of the left. FrontPage Magazine. May 31, 2002.

• Leo Strauss and American Foreign Policy, by Thomas G. West. The Claremont Review of Books April 25, 2003. Contra Shadia Drury, Thomas West makes a case against American expansionism on the principles of Strauss:

  My impression as an outside observer is that Straussian influence in the administration has been grossly exaggerated. But let us assume for discussion's sake that it is strong. Since Strauss has been wildly accused of everything from being an admirer of Hitler to being a devotee of Wilsonian progressivism, I think it high time to clarify Strauss's understanding of foreign policy. I shall argue that although there is some common ground, Strauss's overall approach is quite different from that of Kristol, Kagan, and other prominent neoconservatives in and out of the administration. . . .

• What Hath Strauss Wrought?: Misreading a Political Philosopher, by Peter Berkowitz. Weekly Standard June 2, 2003.

• "The Leo-Conservatives, by Gerhard Sporl. Der Spiegel August 4, 2003.

• Tim Robbins' Ghostwriter, by Terry Teachout. The Straussian Cabal's enginnering of the War in Iraq was alluded to in a play directed by Hollywood actor Tim Robbins (Imbedded), in which a character named Pearly White [named after prominent neoconservitive Richard Pearle] is made to recite a line attributed to Strauss . . . only the quote in question is totally bogus. Terry does some detective work and uncovers the source.

• Straussian War Conspiracy Exposed The following exchange is taken from a "teach-in" sponsored by Bill Bennett's Americans for Victory over Terrorism at UCLA on April 2 and later broadcast on C-SPAN. (The full transcript is available on AVOT's website.) Two very shrewd students seem to have stumbled onto the Dirty Little Secret of this war . . .

• "The Straussians are Coming!", by Clifford Owen. Claremont Review of Books April 28, 2005. (Review of Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire, by Anne Norton. Yale UP, Sept. 2004). The author reviews yet another book -- apparently there is a market for exposé of the Straussian Cabal's inner circle.

• The Real Leo Strauss. New York Times June 7, 2003. Jenny Strauss Clay, a professor of classics at the University of Virginia, defends her father's name in the face of his detractors.

• "The Princely Protocols", BrothersJudd.com. Oct. 28, 2003. Responding to Shadia Drury's interview on the "Straussian cabal" in the Bush administration, Orrin Judd observes:

  Perhaps the most perplexing aspect of the Left's fear of Straussianism is their insistence that its elitist anti-democratic aspect is a dark and jealously guarded secret. It is, of course, the classic conservative critique of democracy that such a system is not necessarily liberal--does not protect liberty. No one was better aware of this than the Founders, who wrote a rather anti-democratic Constitution and created a Republic, based on those of ancient times, rather than a pure democracy. In order to believe the Straussian disregard for democracy to be unique to them and a secret, you not only have to ignore the Federalists themselves, but folks like de Tocqueville in the past and both the more popular writings of the neocons, like Fareed Zakaria's Future of Freedom, and the best writings, like Robert Kraynak's Christian Faith and Modern Democracy, of those the Straussians have influenced.

  And, finally, David Cohen would like to inform us that We're All Straussians Now BrothersJudd May 11, 2003:

  Let's note a couple of ironies. The Bush administration, according to the popular press, is either helmed by an ignoramus with no intellectual curiousity, or it is controlled by several secretive cabals, including one whose inner circle are political philosphers. Liberals, who consider themselves, ipso facto, intellectuals, are entering their fourth decade on a rudderless ideological boat. Finally, it is liberalism, not conservatism, that believes that the world must be run by a small group of enlightened philosophical despots, who tell the masses (infected as they are with false consciousness) what they need to hear.

  I have to admit, though, that this is my path to religion. I have never had a direct revelation and have never felt G-d's intercession in my life (although I have lived a blessed life). Looking at history and at the current state of the world, I have decided, for reasons that have been rehearsed here many times, that religion, particularly if at odds with a powerful state, is necessary to secure our liberties. If that strategic religiosity makes me a Straussian, so be it.

NOTE: The conclusion of this post was edited on October 13, 2005]

Aquinas:"First Whig?" - Novak's Catholic Whig Tradition

The debate which is the focus of this website is often characterized as one between "Whig-Thomists" and "Augustinian-Thomists." Given that "Whig-Thomist" is a label commonly applied (usually in a derogative manner, although not quite as maliciously as "neocon") to the Catholic philosopher Michael Novak, I'd like to devote a post to the origins and history of the term, as it originates in Lord Acton and later in the "Catholic Whig" proposal of Michael Novak.

Lord Acton, Thomas Aquinas and the "Whig Theory of Revolution"

The meaning of the term "Whig-Thomist" is originally derived from a passage from Lord Acton's famous speech "The History of Freedom in Christianity" delivered to the members of the Bridgemouth Institute on May 28, 1877, in which he credits St. Thomas Aquinas with having proposed an early form of "The Whig theory of revolution":

Here are the sentiments of the most celebrated of all the Guelphic writers: -- "A King who is unfaithful to his duty forfeits his claim to obedience. It is not rebellion to depose him, for he is himself a rebel whom the nation has a right to put down. But it is better to abridge his power, that he may be unable to abuse it. For this purpose, the whole nation ought to have a share in governing itself; the constitution ought to combine a limited and elective monarchy, with an aristocracy of merit, and such an admixture of democracy as shall admit all classes to office, by popular election. No government has a right to levy taxes beyond the limit determined by the people. All political authority is derived from popular suffrage, and all laws must be made by the people or their representatives. There is no security for us as long as we depend on the will of another man." This language, which contains the earliest exposition of the Whig theory of the revolution, is taken from the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, of whom Lord Bacon says that he had the largest heart of the school divines. And it is worth while to observe that he wrote at the very moment when Simon de Montfort summoned the Commons; and that the politics of the Neapolitan friar are centuries in advance of the English statesman’s.

In "Was Aquinas a Whig? St. Thomas and Regime" (Faith & Reason Fall 1994), Kenneth Craycraft, Assistant Professor of Theology at St. Mary's University (San Antonio, TX), challenges Lord Acton's interpretation / summary of Aquinas. "While language similar to some of that which Acton attributes to Thomas may be found at various places in Aquinas," Craycraft notes, "the 'quote' is at best an interpolation, at worst a fabrication." With respect to Acton's reading of Aquinas itself:

Though Acton does faithfully convey part of Aquinas' thought, he ignores the very "un-Whigish" premise of the passage, as well as an important qualification to the right to depose the tyrant. First, Aquinas, unlike Acton or any other liberal, advocates the rule of one man as "the best" and "to be preferred." Aquinas would not remove the king in order to establish liberal democracy, but rather in order to establish another (just) king.

Craycraft goes on to note points of similarity and discrepancy between Acton's paraphrasing of Aquinas and direct passages from Aquinas himself:

. . . for the Whig Acton, no political good is higher than individual freedom. "Liberty is not a means to a higher political end," he asserts. Liberty "is itself the highest political end. It is not for the sake of a good public administration that it is required, but for security in the pursuit" of individual preference. ["History of Freedom in Antiquity", 1877]. For Acton liberal democracy, not monarchy, is the best "regime." Still less could one ever argue that tyranny ought to be endured under some circumstances.

For Aquinas, though, liberty is not the highest good, political or otherwise, and democracy is not the best regime. Though giving carefully qualified grounds for deposing the tyrant, Aquinas affirms two very un-Whigish political doctrines: monarchy as superior to democracy, and order as precedent to liberty. "The more efficacious . . . a government is in keeping the unity of peace, the more useful it will be," explains St. Thomas. "For we call that more useful which leads the better to the end. Now it is manifest that what is itself one can more efficaciously bring about unity than several. . . . Therefore the rule of one man is more useful than the rule of many."

Craycraft concludes:

Acton's quilted paraphrase, while containing some authentic echoes of Thomas' writing, clearly cannot be called a quote. Moreover, the meaning Acton tries to convey by the paragraph is clearly a departure from Thomas' own thought. While one may or may not conclude that Thomas' thought was a precursor to liberalism, he certainly advocates nothing like a liberal theory of revolution, nor can he be called a Whig. The essential point of Acton and the Whig theory he represents is that liberal democracy is not the least imperfect option among many, but that it is the best regime (or, rather, non-regime), in accord with man and his nature. The more refined is liberalism the more just the system; the less pure the less just. Thought of as a continuum, monarchy is the least just regime.

But for Aquinas, rule by one wise man is the best regime, both because it is consistent with nature and it works best. Since no man is sufficiently wise or above temptation toward evil, other types of regime are mixed with the best regime to arrive at the most workable. But the essential point is that the regime is closest to being most natural when it is headed by the single wise king. For Aquinas, the best regime is monarchy; democracy and aristocracy are mixed with monarchy only because of the possible failure of the king to remain just. Thus to call St. Thomas a Whig is to ascribe to him exactly the opposite opinion of the just regime.

and closes with a citation from Pierre Manent:

Despite the authority of Lord Acton, it is not possible to describe Thomas Aquinas as a liberal. Saint Thomas was not a liberal. Nor was he anti-liberal, which goes without saying. He described, analyzed, and pronounced what appeared to him to be the objective order of things and the nature of man, founded on an objective hierarchy of what was good. Now, it was such a "dogmatic" presupposition that was rejected by those authors who developed the liberal viewpoint. The starting point of the idea and of the liberal undertaking was skepticism: the idea of what was good is an uncertain one and that is why men fight. As Hobbes and Locke took pleasure in proclaiming, there is no summum bonum. . . . It is certain that, by radically criticizing the idea of good, the idea of conscience, and the idea of an objective morality, they undermined a vital presupposition of Christian doctrine.

(Which, of course, raises the separate issue of what kind of liberalism is being advocated by the "Whig-Thomists" -- but that's another debate for another time).

I thought it best to open up with Craycraft's critique, just so we will have no illusions that there is a "direct line" of development between St. Thomas Aquinas and liberal or constitutional democracy, as envisioned by Lord Acton. As we'll see, I think it would likewise be deliberately misleading -- that is to say, a "straw man" -- to assume that Novak is arguing for such a "direct line" or a literal understanding of Aquinas as "The first Whig." A plain reading of Novak indicates otherwise.

From Acton to Hayek, Murray, Novak

According to Craycraft, Lord Acton's assertion was "approvingly cited" by Friedrich Hayek ("In some respects Lord Acton was not being altogether paradoxical when he described Thomas Aquinas as the first Whig" - The Constitution of Liberty U of Chicago Press, 1960, p. 457, fn 4) and John Courtney Murray ("‘A free people under a limited government' . . . is a phrase that would have satisfied the first Whig St. Thomas Aquinas" - We Hold These Truths, Sheed & Ward, 2nd ed., 1986, p. 32).

Novak calls Aquinas the "first Whig," and lists Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Adam Smith, Lord Acton and Friedrich von Hayek as representatives of this political philosophy. See Novak, This Hemisphere of Liberty (Washington, DC: The AEI Press, 1990), pp. 107ff.; "The Return of the Catholic Whig," , No. 1 (March 1990): 38-42; "Thomas Aquinas, the First Whig," Crisis, October 1990: pp. 31-38; and Free Persons and the Common Good (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1988), pp. 29-30; 80.

Novak Makes His Case for "Catholic Whiggery"

The Hemisphere of Liberty is the key text for an explication of what Novak means by "Catholic Whiggism". Novak provides the following summary of his book on his website (MichaelNovak.net):

Lord Acton called Thomas Aquinas the first Whig. The ancient Whig pedigree, far older than the now defunct British and American parties of that name, includes Bellarmine, Alexis de Tocqueville, Acton himself, Jacques Maritain, Yves R. Simon, and others. Catholic Whigs, like Progressives, believe in the dignity of the human person, in human liberty, in institutional reform, in gradual progress. But they also have a deep respect for language, law, liturgy, custom, habit, and tradition that marks them, simultaneously, as conservatives. With the conservatives, the Catholic Whigs have an awareness of the force of cultural habit and the role of passion and sin in human affairs. With the liberals, they give central importance to human liberty, especially the slow building of institutions of liberty. The Catholic Whigs see liberty as ordered liberty – [quoting Lord Acton] not the liberty to do what one wishes, but the liberty to do what one ought.

In an appendix to This Hemisphere of Liberty, Novak lays out his case for dubbing Thomas Aquinas "The First Whig" ("Thomas Aquinas: The First Whig, pp. 107-123). He begins by noting some of the contexts in which we recognize Aquinas' philosophy -- from courts of law to international relations, in the distinction of the sacred from the secular, the use of concepts like 'secular,' 'conscience,' 'will' and 'person'; in the poetry of Dante and the mysticism of St. John of the Cross,

"The Western Tradition rests upon Aquinas as the sturdy bridge from the ancients (Moses and the prophets, the Greeks, Jesus, Cicero and the Church Fathers) to the modern age . . . remove Aquinas, and that bridge falls. Unlike Descartes, Hobbes, and other moderns, he really knew his ancients. A greater sophistication on their part might have saved generations of elementary confusions about the senses, the passions, the virtues, reason and the like.

The 'Integral Humanism' of St. Thomas Aquinas'

In spite of the dour time in which Aquinas lived ("to describe men as they actually behaved in the 13th century was not to hold an excessively optimistic view of human virtue", Novak quips), Aquinas possessed a positive vision of his fellow man and an "uncommon capacity for the dispassionate assessment of evidence." Through his discovery and analysis of accurate Latin translations of Aristotle's Ethics and Politics, Aquinas came to appreciate what man could discover by reason and reflection, independently of divine revelation:

Aristotle showed how humans might follow the imperatives written in their nature to become good men, and good citizens. Seeing that, Aquinas "saw that it was good." . . . If it was good for the Creator, that was plenty good for him -- not sufficient, perhaps, for all purposes, but legitimately and fully good, and to be praised, as far as it went.

In other words, Aquinas distinguished "good" from "saved." He wished to honor the work of the Creator, and by no means at the expense of the Redeemer. It is the advantage of Jews and Christians, Aquinas argued, that "their God is reasonable." . . .

This is the proudest boast of the Catholic intellectual tradition: through Thomas Aquinas it legitimated, within a Christian vision, all that is good about human nature and its strivings. . . . This Christian humanism, "integral humanism" as Jacques Maritain called it, is by no means blind to the weakness, sinfulness, and full capacities of evil in the human breast. This humanism nonetheless shares in the satisfaction the Creator took in his creation and, especially, his most beloved creature, man. The most realistic humanism, without illusions, is quite resolute against the nostalgia about the past or utopianism about the future. And it may also be the humanism least closed to the transcendent and most aware of the judgement of God. But humanism it most assuredly is.

According to Novak, the achievement of this particular kind of humanism "is the first sense in which it is legitimate to speak of Thomas Aquinas as 'the first Whig.'"

Hayek's "triple test" for Whiggery

Novak moves on to examine Friedrich von Hayek's "triple test" in defining the term "Whig" -- 1) a commitment to liberty; 2) a love for tradition ("Whigs place considerable weight the lessons of experience, on things tried and proved, on . . . values learned organically, implicitly, and often below the level of verbal articulation"); 3) a sense of realistic hope and modest progress -- that we can learn from the past, can "nudge human institutions to more tolerable practices". Lest their be any misunderstanding over the term progress, Novak clarifies:

As Hayek argues so poignantly [in "Why I am Not a Conservative", Constitution of Liberty pp. 397-411], to call one's self "progressive" these days is to be enrolled against one's will under a banner that is the euphemism given by the Left to sinister dreams of domination. By comparison with the progressives of today's Left, the Whigs have too much respect for tradition to fall into neodoxy, the doctrine that the unproved new is better. Still, on their other flank, believing in the free polity, the free economy, and the moral and cultural ideal of ordered freedom, contemporary Whigs can scarcely call themselves (in the colloquial sense) "conservatives"; the free society is always, under the inspiration of liberty, open to creativity. Thus, their conservatism is tempered by the desire to test new spirits, to prove the good results of experiments, and -- even when experimenting -- to provide many checks and balances against abiding tendencies to self-aggrandizement.

It is in the second sense, that Aquinas possessed "a zeal to vindicate these three principles of orientation," that he was a Whig. But of course, Novak admits, this is not enough.

Practical Principles for a "Catholic Whig" Political Vision

Novak agrees with Craycraft (or rather, anticipates Craycraft's rebuke):

It is, of course, misleading to treat a historical figure outside his context. By no means would it be legitimate to ask if Thomas Aquinas were a Whig in the same sense as Thomas Jefferson, James Madision, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Lord Acton, or Friedrich von Hayek. The more exact question is: What did Thomas Aquinas hold that might embolden those who today cherish the Whig tradition to count him in their number?

The answer, says Novak, is that Aquinas' political vision "laid down specific practical principles that were to be useful to later generations of Whigs, in the construction of new institutions of political liberty." Novak devotes the latter part of his appendix to laying down these (six) principles "that seem compelling to the Whig temper."

1. Civilization is constituted by reasoned conversation - Thomas Gilby , O.P., and John Courtney Murray, S.J., offer the following summary of Aquinas: "Civilization is formed by men locked together in argument. From this dialogue the community becomes a political community." For Aquinas, the most decisive human trait is that we are truth-seeking animals -- free, reasoning, inquiring animals. They ought to be moved by rational persuasion, not by force -- and not by demagogy or seduction, either. . . . That regime is the more civilized which relies less on coercion and more on rational persuasion.

2. The human being is free because he can reflect and choose Thomas Jefferson said "The God who gave us life gave us liberty." ("A Summary View of the Rights of British America"); According to Novak, the words are Jefferson's, but the thesis is that of Aquinas, as expressed in the following:

   "A special rule [of Divine providence] applies where intelligent creatures are involved. For they excel all others in the perfection of their nature and the dignity of their end; they are masters of their activity and act freely, while others are more acted on than acting.

   (Thomas Gilby, OP, St. Thomas Aquinas: Philosophical Texts pp. 355-356). God blessed man with the ability to reflect and to choose among ends proposed to us, and the means to those ends (the chief end being, of course, to love Him). In this lies our dignity as human beings.

3. Civilized political institutions respect reflection and choice - Monarchs are judged by Aquinas according to the degree to which their regimes rule their subjects tyranically or through their consent. Novak grants that "to argue that Aquinas, before Montesquieu and Madison, foretold the shape of the practical institutions that might allow for the routine and regular expression of such consent by the governed would be to overreach." Nonetheless, Novak maintains that St. Thomas validated the search for such institutions":

   He announced their first principles. He insisted upon their proper measure: the more worthy institutions are of the human person's capacity to reflect and to choose, the more civilized they are. If institutions violate that capacity, they are by that much deformed."

   Furthermore, Novak maintains, while Aquinas did not yet speak of "inalienable rights," he recognized "indelible laws in man's being that command the respect of all, agencies of the state included" -- natural law as the criteria for the legitimacy of positive law. Temporal authority, then, should appeal to our inherent rational nature:

   For Aquinas, the foundation of law is the human capacity for reflection and choice: man's reasoning nature. On the one hand, to violate that capacity in the name of law is to empty law of its inherent claim to respect and obedience. On the other hand, civilized life demands order. Without authority, common life falls into listlessness, an incapacity for community action, and ultimately chaos. Order there must be, but not just any kind of order. Only a reasonable order does justice to the dignity of its citizens.

4. True liberty is ordered liberty A genuine exercise of liberty should be unimpeded from within, resting upon "command of the passions, a sense of proportion, correctives against personal weaknesses." Liberty is attained through moral virtue:

   "Temperance, fortitude, a sense of proportion (justice), and practical wisdom . . . these cardinal habits give order to our capacity for human freedom. They are not easy to develop; they are partly a gift and partly earned by repeated effort. Thus, the conquest of personal liberty requires self-education in the virtues necessary to ordered liberty: no such habits, no actual liberty."

5. Humans are self-determined persons, not mere individuals -- As individuals, we are only part of the whole and in this respect may be obliged to subordinate ourselves, even to the point of sacrificing our lives, for the whole. As persons, we are autonomous subjects participating in liberty proper to the Creator. For Aquinas,

   the internal capacities of the person transcend the purposes and limited powers of the state. From a purely philosophical point of view, each person has a responsibility to direct his own destiny. From a theological point of view, each person has been created to share in the life of God. . . .

   No matter how famous, successful, or wealthy a person may become, each person has been made to be restless until he rests in God, and each society stands under God's judgement. No state or no law is legitimate that blocks the free exercise of this quest for God."

6. The regime worthiest of the human person mixes elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy - Here Novak refers to the passage from Aquinas' Summa Theologica Ia-2ae, cv. I:

   Two points should be observed concerning the healthy constitution of a state or nation. One is that all should play a responsible part in the governing: this ensures peace, and the arrangement is liked and maintained by all. The other concerns the type of government; on this head the best arrangement for a state or government is for one to be placed in command, presiding by authority over all, while under him are others with administrative powers, yet for the rulers to belong to all because they are elected by and from all. Such is the best polity, well combined from the different strains of monarchy, since there is one at the head; of aristocracy, since many are given responsibility; and of democracy, since the rulers are chosen from and by the people.

For Aquinas, it is these six theses that justified the inclination of Lord Acton and Friedrich von Hayek to labelAquinas "The First Whig" -- "in principle, not in institutional detail."

Where did it go wrong?

But that is not the end of the story. Novak goes on to note that "in the actual course of Western history, in the great historical experiments that led to our modern liberal societies, direct intellectual links with these six theses of Aquinas were broken" -- pointing to the neglect of Aquinas by Hobbes, Montesquieu, Locke, Rosseau, and others. For Novak, this intellectual rupture with Thomistic thought has had disasterous consequences for our culture, among them the failure of Enlightenment project to establish an ethic based on modern conceptions of reason (here Novak joins others in praising Alisdair MacIntyre's groundbreaking analysis After Virtue); the split between secular philosophy and religion which has "marooned the majority of churchgoers and isolated the academics and intellectuals."

Novak concludes:

In calling Aquinas with propriety the first Whig, therefore it would be wrong to derogate from the full, practical originality of the Whigs who appeared in history some four or more centuries later than he did. They had plenty to invent and to achieve on their own. So it would not do to give Aquinas more credit than he deserves -- or less. He helped to establish, and to justify in the Christian world, the Whig values of liberty, tradition and institutional progress. He paid high honor to the political vocation. He held together concepts that many later thinkers treat as dichotomies -- concepts such as freedom and order, person and community, knowledge through the senses and intelligence, passion and virtue, tradition and progress, the evil in man and the good, nature and grace, faith and inquiry On each of these matters, he may have been the deepest thinker in the Whig tradition. In trying to deepen the philosophical formulations of that tradition, and in particular to build a bridge between the philosophical and the religious ways of addressing questions of liberty, one could do worse than to seek some fresh starting points in Aquinas. [p. 122]

Related Links on "Whig-Thomism", Pro / Con

• "Aquinas and the Heretics", by Michael Novak. First Things 58 (December 1995): 33-38. A rich essay in which Novak addresses Aquinas' professed intolerance of heresy in Secunda Secundae as a challenge to his Whig-Thomist proposition, since it "reinforces the views of those who believe that Catholic teaching is inherently intolerant."

• In On Two Wings: "Ten Questions about the Founding" [pp. 120-123], Novak devotes a chapter to some brief Q&A on his premises, one of which is: "If Aquinas was the 'First Whig', why did it take so long for the right to religious liberty to become an operative part in political constitutions?" -- Novak responds by articulating the necessary social advances that must be achieved before a political regime of religious liberty can be established: 1) differentiation of the sphere of the state from society and the relevant authorities of each; 2) differentiation of the sphere of culture from politics, in such a way that loyalty to the state does not require unity of thought and belief"; 3) a theory of rights that sees justice (jus, right) inhering not only in things, but in persons -- "that rights inhere in subjects, not things."

  Novak credits the work of Brian Tierney (The Idea of Natural Rights: Studies on Natural Rights, Natural Law, and Church Law 1150 - 1625 Eerdmans, 1997) for pointing out that

  . . . while it is not likely that Aquinas had reached the subjective idea of natural right . . . what Aquinas did do is develop the idea of personal liberty in exquisite analytical detail, with precisions beyond the ken of earlier writers concerning such concepts as will, practical wisdom, liberum arbitrium, conscience, synderesis, and other aspects of liberty.

  Canonists would further develop Aquinas' thought on these matters, bringing it to bear in their own historical circumstances, "[leading] them to adapt the Thomastic language they inherited to new uses, beyond those employed by Thomas himself but -- so some canonists argue -- entirely consistent with his approach." Against the mistaken notion that modern rights theories are derived entirely from Hobbes, Tierney demonstrates "the history of the concept of jus naturale before the seventeenth century."

• Two scholars have written detailed book-length critiques/rebuttals of the "Whig Thomist" proposition -- Robert Kraynak's Christian Faith and Modern Democracy: God & Politics in the Fallen World U. of Notre Dame Press (September 2001); and Dr. Tracy Rowland's The Culture and Thomist Tradition After Vatican II Routledge; 1 edition (April 1, 2003) - click the links for further information and reviews. (They're currently on my "must-read" list, so I'm refraining from further commentary until I've actually perused them).

  Readers can get a sense of Rowland's approach in Part II of an interview with Zenit News Service, "Benedict XVI, Thomism, and Liberal Culture" (July 25, 2005), in which she lays out the points of dispute between the "Whig" and "Augustinian" Thomists. Lest anyone have any illusions regarding how she feels about Whig-Thomism: "While the Whigs argue that liberalism is the logical outgrowth of the classical-theistic synthesis, the Augustinian Thomists argue that the liberal tradition represents its mutation and heretical reconstruction, and they tend to agree with Samuel Johnson that the devil -- not Thomas Aquinas -- was the first Whig."

• The Social Order As Community, by Thomas Storck. Caelum Et Terra Vol 6 no 4 Fall 1996 -- in which a section is devoted to the question: "Is there a 'Catholic Whig Tradition?'", with specific reference to the "6 theses" of Aquinas which are compatible with Whiggery. Stork concludes:

  In his attempt to justify Aquinas's standing as a Whig, Novak has to fudge a good deal. . . . Most of these six theses are not peculiar to the Whig tradition, number six, for example, has been a staple of political philosophers since pagan antiquity, and numbers two, four and five are likewise hardly peculiar to the Whigs. But in fact Novak does not really attempt to make a serious argument here. He does not attempt to show that these theses are uniquely Whig, nor that, to the extent St. Thomas held any of them, this fact should make us "count him" in the same tradition as John Locke. By Novak's method of reasoning, almost every classical political philosopher could be counted as a Whig.

Novak can be commended for crediting St. Thomas for his (howbeit long-term) contributions to liberal/Whig political philosophy, and the "Whig Pedigree" is useful for charting similarities among a range of scholars. Novak lists the model thinkers of the Whig tradition as Robert Bellarmine, Richard Hooker, the Jesuits of Salamanca, and Lord Acton; the recent exponents are Don Luigi Sturzo, Jacques Maritain, Yves R. Simon, John Courtney Murray, SJ, Friedrich von Hayek and his country man Wilhelm Roepke, among others.

At the same time, as Craycraft and Storck demonstrate, the claim that Aquinas was the "first Whig" contains great potential for confusion and misinterpretation (due to its ambiguity), and any reference would best be accompanied by further clarification.