Aurelian Craiutu
Auteur van A Virtue for Courageous Minds: Moderation in French Political Thought, 1748-1830
Over de Auteur
Aurelian Craiutu is Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is author and editor of several books on French political thought, most recently A Virtue for Courageous Minds: Moderation in French Political Thought, 1748-1830.
Werken van Aurelian Craiutu
A Virtue for Courageous Minds: Moderation in French Political Thought, 1748-1830 (2012) 13 exemplaren
Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes (Haney Foundation Series) (2016) 13 exemplaren
Conversations with Tocqueville : the global democratic revolution in the twenty-first century (2009) 5 exemplaren
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Algemene kennis
- Geslacht
- male
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- Romania (birth)
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I have many broad areas of agreement with what he is trying to say here but also some very definitive disagreements. Many things are conflated in one part of the book then treated as separate in another. Are we talking about moderation as a position? Why is moderation so often used almost interchangeably with compromise? For instance, I am now and will always be a leftist. I also know that for any kind of democracy to work there has to be give and take, some compromise. That doesn't mean I take a stand for moderation, it means I argue my "radical" viewpoint and work with "radicals" with other perspectives to find agreeable compromises. To set up as a given the idea that there are two positions in opposition and therefore a moderate position is somewhere between them is asinine. Yes, we are a de facto two party system so, at least on the national level, most things come down to those two parties. I prefer to work to eliminate the two-party system rather than "moderately" just accept it and create my little faux philosophical position based on it as a given.
I am probably not being completely fair in my assessment because I find the author's attempts at manipulation offensive and his authorial voice both smug and self-righteous. Rather than explain his ideas, he spends the first part of the book trying to make it sound like any disagreement with his position comes from some mistaken and radical position, whether from the left or the right. We just don't get it or aren't smart enough to accept what he says because, you know, men (almost exclusively men) from ancient times until a century or more ago had good, for their time, ideas, and Craiutu is making it simple enough for us mere mortals to grasp.
It is based on many very good thinkers, but ideas are meant to be taken and developed as time goes on, not taken as static and the current world made to fit. It is like the people who apply the constitution based on what the founding fathers thought because their ideas about a world with slavery, no universal suffrage, etc should be taken as gospel, not used as a starting point from which to evolve. Craiutu has failed to evolve and uses cheap debate team tactics to set up his fake debate.
Middle rating because there are good ideas in the book (usually in quotes of others, not in the author's own thought) and because there will be others who won't find his authorial voice to be like nails on a chalkboard. That said, I won't recommend it to anyone I know, there are plenty of books that actually work on the important issues, not use the issues to pat himself on the back for being so radically moderate.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (meer)