tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post8641685958750848349..comments2024-03-27T07:18:39.229-05:00Comments on In Medias Res: Thoughts on NeuhausUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-10549959885612789012009-01-16T07:31:00.000-06:002009-01-16T07:31:00.000-06:00Very very long great post!tired.Very very long great post!<BR/><BR/>tired.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-37136279269460905142009-01-10T21:36:00.000-06:002009-01-10T21:36:00.000-06:00Laura, I think it'll survive; too many people have...Laura, I think it'll survive; too many people have come to value it and are deeply invested in it for it just to close shop. But for certain, it'll never be the same without him.<BR/><BR/>Hector, I agree with your final benediction upon Neuhaus's character. As for your argument about liberalism and Christianity generally, I probably mostly agree with you, but that's a long discussion to have. You really ought to check out the book by Damon Linker that I mention; you won't like at all the secularist conclusions it comes to--I didn't--but his account of how Neuhaus traveled from the almost-socialist left during the 1960s, to theoconservative/neoconservative Republicanism in the 1990s, is fascinating.<BR/><BR/>Jacob, when I first read FT, I did have quite a bit of sympathy for his substantive political positions, as you can probably guess. But even after I'd lost that sympathy, I kept reading it, for a quite a few years actually, because it was--and, I suppose, still is--just such a damn fine popular intellectual journal.Russell Arben Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03366800726360134194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-34928745273724170772009-01-10T19:33:00.000-06:002009-01-10T19:33:00.000-06:00"over the years that I read him, Neuhaus demonstra..."over the years that I read him, Neuhaus demonstrated again and again that he was an expert at the supremely confident, elegantly intelligent, utterly eviscerating attack. (That's why many of those of us who read FT as undergraduates got caught up in it in the first place--to absorb with glee every month or so his meandering back-of-the-issue notes and asides, alternately casting light, asking hard questions, and shooting the wounded."<BR/><BR/>Just so. I was a happy and enthusiastic FT reader as an undergrad-- indeed it's theonly publication for which I was ever directly attacked by a fellow Brown undergrad who saw me reading it. And I of course had close to no sympathy with his substantive political positions-- but I did enjoy reading his statements of them.Jacob T. Levyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02575549001627195334noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-16042764940336836262009-01-09T19:16:00.000-06:002009-01-09T19:16:00.000-06:00Russell, Great post. I certainly agree that Neuhau...Russell, <BR/><BR/>Great post. I certainly agree that Neuhaus is not for me. Apart from his unstinting support for the Republican Party, I don't think that liberalism, in the last analysis, is really compatible with Christian moral teaching. Liberalism is partly true of course (inasmuch as it borrows from the root of Christian moral teaching) and partly false (to the extent that it deviates from the root). <BR/><BR/>Some precepts of liberalism, such as that "Torture of suspects during interrogations is wrong", or "People should be free to choose the religion that they find convincing" are true, and it is to the credit of liberals that for several hundred years they fought to establish these principles (which, in the last analysis, are in keeping with the teachings of Christ). Often, of course, for less than the best reasons: torturing suspects is wrong not because Mill or Rawls said so, but for much deeper and older reasons. <BR/><BR/>Neuhaus was (imo) wrong about many things, but in the end, does that really matter? We can't know a man's heart, but from all accounts he did try his best to love God and love his neighbor. He was a good man, and one who strove mightily against the problem of legalized abortion, and for that he deserves our praise and our best wishes.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-38161637996511064672009-01-09T13:03:00.000-06:002009-01-09T13:03:00.000-06:00my parents are just crushed about his passing. The...my parents are just crushed about his passing. They're aren't sure if First Things will be able to continue without him.Prof. McKennahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07576901463723173366noreply@blogger.com