Meilaender on Stout's "Democracy and Tradition"

In the April issue of First Things, Gilbert Meilaender has a typically thoughtful (and beautifully written) review essay of Jeffrey Stout's recent book, "Talking Democracy." Stout's project, as Mailaender describes it, is to "steer . . . a middle way between Rawlsian social contract liberalism . . . and a 'new traditionalism', often religious in character and influenced by the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and Stanley Hauerwas." (Note: Meilaender concludes that Stout does not get MacIntyre or Hauerwas quite right). Hauerwas and the "new traditionalists", Stout argues, go too far in rejecting the Rawlsian "public reason" game, and are insufficiently appreciative of the possibility and importance of "democratic discussion."

There's a lot more, obviously, to Stout's book and to Meilaender's review. Both are recommended. The concluding paragraphs of the essay are, I think, particularly provocative:

"We might wonder whether the guiding image of this book—conversation—is not better suited as a characterization of academic than political life. Stout has drawn the image of conversation from Rorty, but its deeper source can be found in Michael Oakeshott’s discussion of the several voices in “the conversation of mankind” (though Rorty and Stout both eschew Oakeshott’s sense that philosophy is the search for what, as whole and complete, goes beyond any single voice in this conversation and seeks the coherence—at least in thought—of the whole). For Oakeshott, however, conversation characterizes not politics but the academy. Far from being a moral and spiritual association, politics is a realm of practice that concerns itself with the general arrangements necessary for a cooperative life among a group of people whom chance or choice have brought together.

Unlike politics—where decisions must be reached and goals pursued, where results count for a great deal—a university education provides the true image of an endless conversation. Such a conversation, Oakeshott writes, “does not need a chairman, it has no predetermined course, we do not ask what it is ‘for,’ and we do not judge its excellence by its conclusion; it has no conclusion, but is always put by for another day.” Captivating as this image is, much as we might wish it really characterized our own colleges and universities today, it cannot, of course, be adequate as a depiction of the rest of life—in which children must be raised, enemies confronted, goals pursued, and the Eternal (with whom one does not simply converse) confronted. Hence, writes Oakeshott, “the characteristic gift of a university is the gift of an interval.” It is not the whole of life, but a moment in life—and it is perhaps the characteristic vice of the academician (even if understandable for one whose life is spent fostering such an interval of conversation in the lives of his students) to try to extend it beyond its proper reach. Recognizing the lure of that, Oakeshott also sees that it cannot and should not be so extended. “It belongs to the character of an interim to come to an end; there is a time for everything and nothing should be prolonged beyond its time. The eternal undergraduate is a lost soul.” To miss this is more than a philosophical mistake; it is bad for democracy."

Rick