Transcript: I suppose the political philosopher – the contemporary political philosopher – whose work I most admire is someone who was a teacher of mine, and who I admire most, and that’s Charles Taylor, who held a professorship in political theory at Oxford during the days that I was there as a graduate student. And he was also very actively involved in Canadian politics ________ time. And he . . . he’s nominally in retirement, but he’s still active in producing important work. But from Charles Taylor, I learned about Aristotle, and about Hagel, and about the tension between the enlightenment project – which gives rise to universal notions from modern liberalism – and other traditions . . . the republican tradition, the romantic tradition, and also religious traditions that are intentioned with modern understandings of the self. So I would say Charles Kaylor is really, among contemporary philosophers, my hero.

Recorded on: 6/12/07

Transcript: Well here, I suppose, is a question that is . . . that is worth asking . . . worth all of us asking ourselves as citizens in the world as we find it today. And that is, “Does the good life . . . can the good life simply be one that takes place in private life alone – in our own individual lives and those of our families? Or in order to lead a good, and fulfilling, and satisfying life, do we need to cultivate a care for the world, and to try to figure out how to have a hand . . . how to have meaningful say in trying to shape the whole of the common good, or the direction of things beyond our own corner of the world?” I think that is an open question. My own hunch is that the answer to the question – which won’t surprise you – is the second. That the care of the world, and the participation, and the care of the public life larger than ourselves, is an important part of the good life. But you know philosophers for a very long time have disagreed about this and debated about it. So I really take it to be an open question, but an inviting question for . . . that’s . . . but an inviting question that is really very much relevant to the lives we live and the world that we face today.

Recorded on: 6/12/07

Transcript: You know after the fall of Communism, there was a kind of triumphalism in the west, and especially in the United States. The idea was there is only one system really left standing: liberal capitalism, American style. We’ve won. They’ve lost. And the world, sooner or later, will come over to embrace American style liberal capitalism. From the time of the fall of the Berlin wall, when that triumphalism was at its apogee, until now, there’s been a huge deflation, I think, of that kind of _________.

From the time of the fall of the Berlin wall, when that triumphalism was at its height, there’s been quite . . . that triumphalism has really been punctured by events in the world, September 11th being one vivid example. And so I think the real question is what do . . . what do we need to do to make democracy possible, and to enable it to flourish within the United States? And other countries will have to think that through for themselves. So in the United States, the problem is how to revive democracy at a time when the ordinary voice of citizens seems to matter less and less, and the political parties seem incapable of organizing meaningful debate on the questions that people care about most. And money has a disproportionate influence on the political process. That’s the challenge for ________ United States. And then I suppose a further question is how the United States will engage with the rest of the world. And I think there has been not only a kind of destructive triumphalism and hubris on the part of the United States.

The other thing I worry about is America’s role in the world, and the way we deal with the rest of the world. I think the Iraq war has been a blunder of really historic dimensions that will take a generation or more to try to dig out of. Because I think what we’ve done in Iraq is precisely to set in motion a kind of civilizational conflict that Osama Bin Laden dreamt of, but didn’t believe that even he could achieve with September 11th. And it isn’t just the blunder in Iraq, but really the . . . America stands for in the world a kind of hubris that’s been displayed by America in the world that I think poses an enormous challenge now for America’s relation with the rest of the world. And I think what we need to do is to try to come by a way of ________ our power in the world. And we still have enormous power and influence – the United States – in the rest of the world. And we have to figure out how to bear and carry that power, and exercise that responsibility with a confidence and humility that befits a great power – and an idealistic power. I think it would be a great tragedy – maybe the greatest tragedy of our disaster in Iraq – if we allowed it to discredit idealism in America’s role in the world as such; the idea that America has a contribution to make in the world at large to make the world a better place, and to promote democracy and respect for rights.

We need to find a way of bearing our power in the world and exercising our responsibility that involves a certain measure of humility not only for the sake of treating other countries better or with more respect, but also for the sake of being open to learning something from other countries, other traditions, other experiences. And so that, I think, is another very concrete challenge that the United States faces today.

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Transcript: Well I’m very influenced by Hagel, who did have a kind of world, historical picture. And I don’t agree with Hagel’s conclusions; but I think that he had a _________ vision about the relation of history and philosophy that I learned a lot from, and that I find still very powerful. And his trajectory – the story that one comes away with trying to grapple with Hagel’s philosophy – is a story of human understanding and political practice moving from a very firmly located, particular, rooted, bounded political experience . . . say going back to the Greek ________ . . . gradually, with the advent of Christianity and ultimately the enlightenment, universalism, a kind of move away from the local, in particular, as the source of meaning, or obligation, or allegiance toward a kind of universal appreciation of the claims of humankind. ___________. But then Hagel said that was not enough. That was not self-sufficient. It was too unrooted. It wasn’t connected. It was a kind of abstract, moral outlook that wasn’t rooted in an actual embodiment of ethical life. So the next part of the project was to try to reconcile, or to bring together, or to hold together ________ perhaps the universalist aspirations of the enlightenment, or the enlightenment reason . . . secular reason on the one hand with a sense of belonging, and rootedness, and place in the world are kind of situated ________ life ________. So that was the way Hagel set up the problem. And I think in casting the problem in that way, or the challenge, I think he had a deep insight. Now he had a particular solution having to do with the end of his career and so on that I don’t agree with ___________. But especially today with the tension between the globalizing tendencies of the economy and the revival of particular ethnic, national, religious, regional beliefs, yearnings, and claims. I think we see, still, the tension between the universalizing aspiration with the desire to find a particular . . . _________ to find a particular place in the world. And there is great confidence – ___________ – that eventually religious differences would fade away. National differences would cease to have significance, and we would kind of all be citizens of the world. Individuals, but also universal citizens. But the middle terms of moral life, and the middle terms of public life have had a staying power. Which is why we see the revival of nationalism, of religion . . . and sometimes with a dark consequence. And so I think the basic challenge of reconciling the universal aspiration of freedom with a sense of situation in a particular place in your world . . . I think that challenge is with us still.

Recorded on: 6/12/07

Transcript: Well a life well lived would be, it seems to me, first of all to include some element of reflection – critical reflection; what one believes about fundamental moral questions, about obligations to one’s fellow citizens and beyond. But it should be the kind of reflection that draws upon the moral traditions and histories that one inhabits. And so I don’t think there . . . there is a certain ideal of intercultural dialogue that people have that say, “Let’s try to precipitate out of all of our differences . . . the things we can agree on, and live by that commonality.” I think that’s a _______ commonality, because it doesn’t really connect very deeply with what people care about in the first place. So I think a life well lived is a life of reflection on one’s own moral convictions and traditions. And not only reflection in the sense of thinking, but also learning. You know, it’s not really possible to have a dialogue across civilizations or cultures unless the participants have some deep, serious understanding of their own traditions. That, I think, is the biggest obstacle now to understand . . . mutual understanding among civilizations and cultures. It’s not just that we don’t know enough about other societies. It’s that we don’t know enough about our own traditions to carry on a serious dialogue with different societies, different cultures, different religious faiths. So I think the life well lived depends on reflection and learning about one’s own traditions; and doing so in a way that has opened the door; _________ wider horizons. And so I think a life well lived, the shape of that, I think, can vary from one historical period to the next. Because if we go back to the theme in the city state, to be alive to the wider world _________, that is what comparative politics or sociology consists of; then today, to reflect seriously on one’s own way of life with an openness to wider horizons requires being alive to the world as a whole; and to the Confusian tradition, and to the Islamic tradition, as well as to the Hindu and Christian and Jewish traditions; and to the secular enlightenment traditions. But I think it has to begin by a serious understanding of one’s own traditions; national traditions; religious traditions; historical traditions. And the reflection can proceed outward from there. And also, I suppose the other element to a life well lived is not just a matter of reflecting and attending to other ways of life; it’s also, I think, a life of active engagement in what the Greeks call “the life of the city”; today we would call it “the life of the world” . . . actual engagement and participation in civic life, whether it’s local, or whether it’s national, or whether it has some global dimension.

Recorded on: 6/12/07

Transcript: Well if I were to describe my political philosophy, I would say that is has two dimensions, two aspects. One of them is that it’s a mistake for those who wind up on top in market societies like ours to think that the benefits that flow from the exercise of their talent in a market society are somehow theirs; that they’re morally deserved; that they’re somehow a reflection of their superior virtue. And so if we look at the inequalities within American society that even the graver, more dramatic inequalities around the world, I think the greatest moral challenge of our time is to try to

. . . is to try to bring to bear the enormous affluence that a great many very fortunate people have achieved around the world to address the crushing poverty in which a great many people around the world live. I think that generations from now, we will look back on our time and ask, and wonder how we could have abided so . . . how we could have permitted crushing poverty to afflict so many people in many parts of the world when there was such staggering wealth. So that would be my first – the gap between the rich and the poor on a global basis. And the second would be that . . . well it goes back to something that we’ve been discussing, which is it’s not possible or desirable, I don’t think, to create a compelling public philosophy – whether it’s within the United States, or whether it’s a global public ethic – that can inform, and animate, and inspire our relation with societies around the world. I don’t think it’s possible to create that by trying to extract from our particular cultures, moral traditions, and religious faiths. I think that the way to a global public ethic – or for that matter to a ________ society within the United States is not to try to extract from the deep differences, and moral and spiritual convictions that we find _________. Instead, I think with that global public ethic, it has to be created from . . . by drawing upon those particular traditions, and cultures, and faiths; not to find one very thin strand that’s some kind of a common denominator. That would be very thin and unsatisfying to everyone. It’s like trying to design a universal prayer that would offend no one if it were to be said on sentimental occasions or in schools. Not that; but a global public effort that draws on and contends with the rich particular traditions – cultural, moral, and religious traditions – that locate people in the world; that give them a sense of place in the world. So that would be the . . . the second ingredient, or the second feature of what I suppose I would call my public philosophy or political philosophy ___________.

Recorded on: 6/12/07

Transcript: I think it comes . . . I think the hunger for public life of larger meanings comes from the fact that it’s not easy to create a life wholly within the terms of individual self-interest or self-seeking. Or even a life of individual . . . individualism plus family life. There is, I think, a desire on the part of most people – especially those of us who are fortunate to live in democratic societies – not just to cultivate our own garden and to live a comfortable family life, but also to participate in shaping the courses that govern our collective thought; and to have a say – a meaningful say – in the collective destiny. And once we’re pitched into a wider civic life . . . once we lift our gaze from our own private pursuits and the well-being of our families to the . . . to the public, or to the common good, then the values we care about . . . the hopes and aspirations we have for the common good will unavoidably follow. Now some political philosophies say we should keep . . . we should try to cabin or bracket our deepest moral and spiritual convictions . . . our vision of the best way to live a life. “Keep those in the private sphere” – within our families, within our churches, synagogues, mosques – and live a public life that is casting holy, secular, universalist terms. But I don’t think it’s possible. I don’t even think it’s even necessarily desirable to insist that many women who care deeply about moral and sometimes religious questions park those convictions at the side of the road before entering the public sphere. It’s not possible, in many cases, to decide public questions, public controversy, without drawing on some substantive moral conviction. But I also think there is . . . I think it _________ life.

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Transcript: Part of what’s drawn me to this set of questions is that in a way, I suppose, it’s leaning against the current of so much of contemporary politics as well as contemporary political philosophy. Because we live . . . we live, after all, in not only a global age, but also in a perilous age. And it’s sometimes thought to be the first principle of contemporary perilous politics, that we’re never going to agree on the deepest questions, or on the moral and religious convictions that citizens around the world hold very deeply but disagree on. We’re never going to come to agreement on those. And if we look back across human history, more often than not we come to blows over those questions. In many ways, modern liberalism was forged in the face of wars of religion in Europe. And so ever since wars of religion and the enlightenment, the first impulse of decent politics, of liberal politics, of modern politics, has been to try to separate political argument and law from moral and religious disputes. And so respect for persons, and pluralism, and toleration have been elevated . . . have become, in a way, the supreme of political values. And it’s perfectly understandable and __________; and yet, what intrigues me is that a politics that tries to keep moral, and religious, and spiritual questions at a distance may not be able to sustain itself. Because people want to participate in a public life where important things are at stake; that go beyond their own self-interests and their own individual ends. People want to be part of something larger than themselves. They want a public life of larger means that addresses the common good, the public good. And so if we succeed too completely in creating a public life that’s denuded of moral and spiritual resonance, and meaning, and argument, the result will not be, I don’t think, a safe, risk-free, tolerant, secular pluralism. The more likely result will be that that empty public sphere, or public space, will be filled. It will be a void waiting to be filled by narrow and tolerant moral lessons. And that’s why I think we see fundamentalism as such a potent political force in our time. Fundamentalism, in many ways, is a rebellion against the strictures that modern enlightenment liberalism has tried to create. And so I think if we’re to create a public life that is capable . . . that has the kind of sturdiness, and strength, and moral bearings to combat the tendency to fundamentalism, it will have to be a public life that admits and even welcomes strong moral, religious, and spiritual voices, argument, disagreement . . . not with the thought that we will all agree, but rather with the thought that the best way to respect a view with which one disagrees is not to ignore it, but to engage in it, argue with it, maybe even to learn from it. And so I think that that really is the political challenge of our time. And it does lean against an instinct that comes from the enlightenment to try to keep those questions at a certain distance apart.

Recorded on: 6/12/07

Transcript: I’m also engaged now in a project . . . the moral limits of markets. What are the spheres that . . . where markets and market-oriented thinking should not govern . . . should not be decisive? And it strikes me that the answer to that questions also forces us to think about . . . also forces us to think about fundamental questions of value, and maybe even spiritual questions bordering on what some would consider to be theological or religious terrain. And so I think that moral and . . . that taking some of the disparate questions that are intriguing in contemporary political philosophy require us to address some big questions about . . . of a moral and spiritual kind that contemporary political philosophy has tried to set to one side. And that . . . we can’t really answer the question, I don’t think, what is the proper role of markets? What are the cultural values that should perhaps resist market values? And what is the proper role for our biotechnological prowess and power in transforming __________. We can’t address those questions, I don’t think, without raising fundamental questions about what it means to be a human being; what is the relation between human beings in a given world; and what are the moral and spiritual sources that often underlie the political debates we have?

Recorded on: 6/12/07

I’ve been a defender of stem cell research, but a critic of the use of genetic engineering for enhancing people for non-medical uses – designer children, bionic athletes, that kind of thing. And in trying to explain why, or even for that matter to understand what’s morally troubling about genetic engineering say for designer children, I was . . . It seemed to me it was necessary to bring back into political philosophy some fundamental questions that verged even on theology that modern philosophy tries to keep at a distance. For example, what is the proper stance of human beings _______? How should we understand our relation to the natural? What is the relation between moral and political reflection on the one hand, and biology – including all biology and all human nature – on the other? So a range of questions that I’m not a part of the standard discourse in contemporary political philosophy. I found that fascinating.

Recorded on: 6/12/07

Transcript: Well there are two things that I’d like to say about that actually. One of them is the question of social science. What is the . . . What does political philosophy have to do with the prestige of science, especially as it’s played itself out within the social sciences? Today the most successful and the most prestigious social science is economics, because it’s seen as the most rigorous. It’s seen as . . . It’s thought – especially by many of its practitioners – to have arrived at a scientific understanding of human behavior, at least where market and market behavior are concerned. And in many ways, scientific understandings of economics detach from traditional normative questions. Traditional questions of value has a kind of momentum of its own, as if economics were a science or a discipline that had graduated from – risen above – a connection with mere speculation, which is what philosophers are sometimes thought to do. And there is something very _________ about that idea of economics as a science, even if you like physics, for example. But I think it’s a mistake. And I think it’s short-sighted. And I think the most important and creative work in the social sciences, in our lifetime and in the future, will be done by people who are equipped with economic training, and concepts, and categories; but who can see beyond it, and who can reconnect economics with what used to be called moral and political economy. You know, back in the days of Adam Smith, David Hume and John Stuart Mill, there was one subject: moral and political economy. There was not political philosophy on the one hand, and economics – “the science” – on the other. And I think that some of the most exciting developments and new work will consist in reconnecting the normative dimensions of moral and political theory with economic analysis. And we see this beginning in debates about globalization, for example, where the role of markets and normative questions seem very hard to leave by the wayside. So that’s one area, I think, in which the established social sciences will . . . are in need of a kind of leavening and deepening that can come if they reconnect with questions not only of policy, but also of values, and of norms, and of ideas.

Recorded on: 6/12/07

Transcript: Right. There are different ways of doing philosophy. And some highly technical ways have their natural home in the academy and among scholars. And there’s enormous value and integrity in that part of philosophy. The part of philosophy that I deal with – and political philosophy in particular – has to be engaged with the world. I don’t think it’s possible to do political philosophy without tending to the actual political circumstances that we face in our world. And in fact, if you look back at the history of political philosophy, most of the great political philosophers have responded to worries of challenges, or even fears about the condition of public things in their own time and in their own lives even. And so very often, political philosophy has grown out of unease, or dissatisfaction, or protest against political conditions of the day. And so I don’t think it’s possible – at least for me I haven’t found it to be possible – to do political philosophy without taking an interest in the hurly-burly . . . the messy world of actual public life, trying to understand it; and also trying to bring philosophy – philosophical arguments and ideals – into actual contact with the public – men and women – the citizens who will decide the fate of public life, and democratic life in our own time. So I think philosophy has to have – political philosophy has to have – a public face, a public dimension. Teaching is part of that. Writing for general publications that reach beyond the academy is also part of that. And so it’s public philosophy in that sense that I’ve tried to contribute to and participate in.

Recorded on: 6/12/07

Transcript: My teaching and writing, taken together, are about the shape and condition of our public life; about the prospect of self-government under modern conditions; and about the challenges and obstacles that the project itself _________ faces in a global age. And I think that there are two primary obstacles. One of them has to do with the scale of the global economy. Going all the way back to Aristotle, political thinkers had often thought that effective self-government and citizenship has to have its roots in very particular places. In Aristotle’s case, that meant a ___________. But we don’t live in small city states anymore. We live in a world where the economy is governed by global forces. And so the question is, can we devise institutions and practices of self-government that enable men and women to be effective citizens in a world where the __________, between nations even, are eroding in significance? So that’s, I suppose, the biggest challenge.

And a second challenge is something that really is the power and the momentum behind markets and market-oriented ways of thinking. The specific project has always depended on finding . . . on finding ways of keeping markets in their place, in their proper sphere . . . which has to do with the buying, and selling, and trading of good and commodities. And in contemporary life, what we find is that markets are spilling over their traditional spheres and boundaries and invading other parts of life that are properly governed by their values. So one of the things I’m trying to think about is how we can develop public effort that can demarcate the proper bounds markets, which are great tools that, too often, come to be regarded as ends in and of themselves.

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Question: What are you best known for?

Transcript: Well my first book was “Liberalism and the Limited Justice”. And it was an attempt to respond to the philosophical account . . . the great philosophical account of liberalism that had been provided by John Rawls – a former colleague here at Harvard – probably the greatest political philosopher of the 20th Century, certainly in the Anglo-American world. And his book came out in 1971, which was four years before I went off to England to graduate school. And it was the most important, and the most impressive philosophical account of the moral basis of American liberalism. And in many ways I found it very compelling and inspiring. But my first book was actually a critique of John Rawls’ version of liberalism. And the main argument was that contemporary liberalism didn’t take adequate account of the role of moral and spiritual questions in political life, and conceived the individual to narrowly as not sufficiently bound up with claims of community, and history, and tradition. So that was my first book, and that . . . some people, they liked to describe my position as communitarian which, in some ways, I can understand, but I’m not completely comfortable with. And so the liberal _________ debate flourished in . . . sort of in political philosophy during the 1980s. And so I think I was first identified with that debate.

Question: What are you working on now?

Transcript: Well since “Liberalism and the Limited Justice”, I wrote a book on the American political and constitutional tradition of democracy’s discontent. And that was . . . tried to . . . that was an attempt to go all the way back to the origins of the American republic to see what became of stronger civic or republican – and I mean small “r” – republican notions of citizenship. The idea that we’re not fully free, except in so far as we participate effectively as citizens in a shared public life, and in a common public venture . . . a politics of the common good. That was the political tradition I wanted to try to recover. And in order to try to recover it for our time, I found myself having to look back and see when were those understandings – strong understandings of civic life and of civic obligation – most prominent in the American experience. And how do they become a _________ out in the years . . . really in the decades since the New Deal . . . the New Deal to the present? So that was one project.

My most recent projects are two. One of them is on ethics and biotechnology, and the whole question of genetic engineering and the ethical implications of new biomedical technologies. That’s one project, and it came to fruition in a short book that just came out called “The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering”. And then I have a new project that I’m hoping to turn to next on the moral limits of markets. There’s some things that money shouldn’t buy.

Recorded on: 6/12/07

Transcript: The way I would describe what I do is I teach political philosophy. And what that really amounts to is inviting students to reflect critically on their own moral and political convictions; to figure out what they believe and why; and to do that in the company of some of the great philosophers of the past. So I invite students to read some of the famous works of political philosophy, but with an eye to contemporary challenges and dilemmas. And above all, with an eye to sorting out . . . Students very, very much wanted to sort out their own moral and religious convictions . . . their own take on the world. That’s really what I do.

Recorded on: 6/12/07

Question: Who was your greatest influence?

Transcript: Well I think as a child, it was mainly family. And in terms of political figures, the person I admired most was Robert Kennedy, who I think was poised when he was running . . . seeking the Democratic nomination for President in 1968. I think he was poised to put American politics on. . . really on a different footing to redefine American liberalism. And he was tragically assassinated. And so much of the creativity and hope that was associated with Robert Kennedy, in that moment, was shattered and lost. So in terms of political figures, I think he’s the person in my lifetime whom I most admire. And then there were intellectual figures later when I became interested in political philosophy.

Question: A Fallen Hero

Well I was 15 years old and living in Los Angeles when he was shot. And he was there just having won the California primary. So I heard about it, I think, on the radio when I woke up that morning to go to school. And I still remember that very vividly. At the time I was . . . I think at the time I was rooting for Hubert Humphrey. He, after all, held from Minnesota, from where I also came. And my parents were traditional Democrats. And it was only in retrospect, really, that I came to regard Robert Kennedy as a kind of hero. I didn’t fully appreciate the time he ran, or the time he was assassinated. The way in which his take on American politics, and his dissatisfaction with the prevailing terms of political discourse, and liberal political discourse actually held out a kind of promise. So I didn’t really fully appreciate that at the time. And it was only in retrospect, looking at the way American politics unfolded, and reading more about American political history that I really came to admire him as fully as I do now.

Question: RFK’s Legacy

Transcript: Well I think that by the late 1960s, liberalism – which had the great moral energy in the 1950s with the Civil Rights Movement, and then with the protest against the Vietnam War – it was liberalism that made the deepest contact with . . . with moral values and with spiritual questions, really. And after the 1960s, liberalism lost the moral energy, it seems to me. And by 1980 with Ronald Reagan, there was a kind of moral void that was filled by conservatives. And so we saw the rise of Jerry Falwell and the moral majority. And Reagan tapped into this, and he claimed for conservatives a kind of monopoly on the moral and spiritual resources of American public life. And so through the 1980s – beginning in the ‘70s and through the ‘80s – liberals became very wary of moral and spiritual questions in politics. They came to think of morality and politics as the province of the religious right and right-wing conservatives. And they worried – liberals did – that to bring moral arguments and spiritual questions into politics risked the coercion ________, and so it should be kept at a distance. I think that was a great mistake, and I think it ceded to conservatives – beginning with Ronald Reagan – a kind of monopoly on the moral and spiritual sources of American politics. And so in retrospect, I saw Robert Kennedy as someone who really did see the need to reinvigorate the spiritual dimension of American liberalism.

Recorded on: 6/12/07

Transcript: I grew up outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, so I’m a child of the Midwest. And I grew up rooting for the Minnesota Twins baseball team. And I went to school in Minnesota until my family moved to Los Angeles when I was 13. And then I went to public school in Los Angeles . . . actually Palisades High School was my high school . . . just overlooking the Pacific Ocean. And then I went to college at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. And for graduate school, I went off to Oxford in England.

Well I’ve been interested, I guess, throughout my life in politics and the shape of American public life and civic life. And I can’t be sure that this is the source of it, but Minnesota always had a strong civic tradition and emphasis on civic life going back to the Democratic Farm Labor party, which had its origins in the Midwest. And it was still strong in Minnesota and the surrounding region when I was growing up. There was also . . . neighborhoods and community played a big part in life growing up in Minnesota. So I suppose there may have been some influences. Not that kind, but ______________.

I think I began really to think about these questions more fully and more clearly when I went abroad. I went to England to study after my undergraduate years. I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I thought maybe a lawyer. Maybe a political journalist . . . that appealed to me a lot. And maybe I thought I would run for office and try to be a politician. And academia was in fourth place in my ideas when I graduated from college. And then I had an opportunity to go off to England to study full time, and really to read more, and study more without having to choose a particular path. And seeing America from a distance for the first time living in England – I wound up spending four years studying there – enabled me to see things about American politics that I had not been aware of living within the United States. And in particular what struck me was the way in which American liberalism had turned procedural, and had really become empty of the kind of moral and spiritual energy that I came to think any Democratic politics requires . . . any progressive politics require. And then I began to try and understand why that had happened historically, and also philosophically.

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