Against Folk-Constitutionalism

Government and the Mind By Joseph Tussman Oxford, 175 pp., $8.95 Upon reading Government and the Mind, this reviewer, for one, feels himself overcome with the desire to confront the author, Joseph Tussman, with a simple question: Where you been all my life? Or, as the academic reviewers put it, this is a Much-Needed Book. Hell, most of its footnotes are Much-Needed Footnotes.

We are living in what is shaping up as a time of Counter-reformation in the theory of free speech. Willmoore Kendall, Leonard Levy, Walter Berns, Francis Canavan, and Hadley Arkes have made a series of crucial distinctions; the Straussian and Burkean schools are a-humming with promise of further development. The public, disturbed by claims made by and on behalf of pornographers, revolutionaries, and assorted cranks, is beginning to sense that the limits of tolerance are inherent, not arbitrary. Journalists, notably George Will, have begun packing the new ideas into epigrams with which to inseminate public discussion. Pretty soon now, one may hope, beleaguered common sense will be armed with something more subtle and supple than the line about shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater.

JS

About the Author

Joseph Sobran

Featured Tags

Government and the Mind By Joseph Tussman Oxford, 175 pp., $8.95 Upon reading Government and the Mind, this reviewer, for one, feels himself overcome with the desire to confront the author, Joseph Tussman, with a simple question: Where you been all my life? Or, as the academic reviewers put it, this is a Much-Needed Book. Hell, most of its footnotes are Much-Needed Footnotes.

We are living in what is shaping up as a time of Counter-reformation in the theory of free speech. Willmoore Kendall, Leonard Levy, Walter Berns, Francis Canavan, and Hadley Arkes have made a series of crucial distinctions; the Straussian and Burkean schools are a-humming with promise of further development. The public, disturbed by claims made by and on behalf of pornographers, revolutionaries, and assorted cranks, is beginning to sense that the limits of tolerance are inherent, not arbitrary. Journalists, notably George Will, have begun packing the new ideas into epigrams with which to inseminate public discussion. Pretty soon now, one may hope, beleaguered common sense will be armed with something more subtle and supple than the line about shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater.