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Peter Lawler
Peter Augustine Lawler is
a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics and Dana Professor
and Chair of the Department of Government and International Studies
at Berry College. He is also executive editor of the acclaimed
journal Perspectives on Political Science and the author of
several books, including Postmodernism Rightly Understood
and Stuck with Virtue: The
American Individual and Our Biotechnological Future.
His latest book, published in July, 2007, is
Homeless and
at Home in America: Evidence for the Dignity of the Human Soul in
Our Time and Place.
More information about
Peter Lawler is available on the Berry College
website.
Resources by Peter Lawler
Conservative
Postmodernism, Postmodern Conservatism, Peter Augustine
Lawler
Excerpt
“What has distinguished
the modern world, above all, is a particular definition of what a
human being is. That definition does not describe a real or complete
human being. It was not even meant to be completely true, but mainly
to be useful as a fiction in the pursuit of unprecedented freedom,
justice, and prosperity....
“Not only are Americans
more individualistic than ever, the biotechnological revolution
promises to give them new weapons of unprecedented power in their
war against nature. The victories they win—like most of the
victories won on behalf of the modern individual—will probably be at
the expense of the distinctively human goods: love, family, friends,
country, virtue, art, spiritual life, and, most generally, living
responsibly in light of what we really know about what we have been
given. The biotechnological revolution will be driven by
individualistic obsession, and we can limit and direct it only if we
can recover the truth that we are more than individuals.
“Postmodernism rightly
understood begins with the realization that we should, in fact, be
grateful for what we have been given....”
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