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May 18, 2021Liked by Titus Techera, Carl Eric Scott

Carl, I disagree here with the selection. As a political theorist and a student of politics, one would have to list his best 5 work slightly different:

#1. The Restless Mind: Alexis de Tocqueville on the Origin and Perpetuation of Human Liberty. 1993.

#2. Postmodernism Rightly Understood: The Return to Realism in American Thought, 1999

#3. Tocqueville's Political Science : Classic Essays, 1992

#4. American Views of Liberty, 1997.

#5. Homeless and at Home in America: Evidence for the Dignity of the Human Soul in Our Time and Place, 2007.

Honorable Mention is the book that Richard M. Reinsch II finished--A Constitution in Full: Recovering the Unwritten Foundation of American Liberty, 2019

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What could see to be his collected op-ed writing, his Allergic to Crazy: Quick Thoughts on Politics, Education, and Culture, Rightly Understood, 2014. It has his posting on Movies and TV, The Happiness Question, pieces on Christanity, Virtue, Higher Education, Science and Technology, and on History/Localism. I did not include it because it is part of his popular writing, rather than his academic/scientific writing.

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This is a worthy effort, Carl, & I subscribe to your list--it is a good introduction & it also reaches the heights of his achievements as a thinker. It's enough, I think, to make any sensible person love Peter's way of thinking & writing, at least if they also have something of a sense of humor...

Like you, I'm baffled that his Tocqueville is out of print & I dunno quite what can be done about it.

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This is helpful, Carl:

"Lawler has three modes of interpretation: 1) interpretation that draws out the analyzed thinker’s meaning, and often more insightfully than any other commentator, 2) interpretation that is mixed with, or even just serves as a springboard for, his own profound and original thinking, or 3) interpretation that is mixed with, or even just serves as a springboard for what is…well, repeat Lawler thinking."

And #3, repeat Lawler thinking isn't just dross, I would argue. It was Peter showing how the ideas fit together, and emphasizing the winning ideas

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May 18, 2021Liked by Titus Techera

Very nice, Carl. I'd put Postmodernism Rightly Understood first.

I think the difficulty you mention with the volume of his work is a difficulty we are increasingly going to face int he age of digital media and decentralized publishing. Students of Chesterton have the same trouble: he wrote so much, and so much seems to be repetition with some slight changes! Of course, Chesterton was a journalist. But that volume and those repetitions were the price of the media Peter chose to write in. The blogger as political theorist!

I'd also mention Pierre Manent as a huge influence on Peter, especially in the last 20 years.

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May 19, 2021Liked by Titus Techera

I think Restless Mind should be at the top (conclusion reached before reading other comments).

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