When we think about a Constitution we
ought to think more comprehensively.
When Aristotle writes of the Athenian
Constitution he includes discussions of
theater, he discusses battles that are
fought, in other words, that a
constitution is more comprehensive and,
simply, the way that we order our
government institutions. My interest is
in exploring the way that the American
Constitution, in some ways, establishes a
way of life that is identifiably
distinct from the way that peoples in
other nations tend to live their lives.
Why is it that in America there's been
in particular an attraction to living in
a set of suburban arrangements rather
than congregating in cities in the way
that one sees, for example, in Europe. This tendency to want to find spaces where we
can withdraw and have a kind of sense of
our own autonomy is a very American
tendency. Also, in the 1950s, there was a
radical change away from the front porch
and the building style adopted was that
of the back patio. What the signal was
more than merely a change in style but a
change in how we viewed ourselves and
our relationships to each other. Now this
is a decision that was made that one
might regard as private but which has
rather extensive public implications.
One of the great ironies, it seems to me, of the American experience is that the very
achievement of our Liberty here perhaps
represented in the flight to the
suburbs and the capacity of every
person to have their own yard is also
reflects a tendency toward a kind of
individualism. One that poses a threat to
democracy's vitality, to the capacity of
democracy to find the Civic resources by
which it can flourish. So it's in these
sorts of areas how we live our lives, how
we educate our children, where and how we build, where we find the practical
effects of a set of ideas that if we're
only looking at the things that we tend
to think of as political
we'll tend to overlook the ways that
those have been shaped by philosophical
assumptions. One of the things that I
encourage among my graduate students is that in addition to a deep understanding
of political ideas that they develop
ways of thinking about how those ideas
connect to political practice. The ways
in which these philosophical ideas have
consequences for our practical lives as
citizens together. Political philosophy
is an essential field of study if you
want to understand our condition as
human beings who attempt to live well
and to flourish together.
