Hour of Power

Democracy and the Ethical Life: A Philosophy of Politics and Community By Claes G. Ryn Louisiana State University Press, 208 pp., $10.95 One approaches with sympathy this book by a young conservative political theorist at the Catholic University of America. Claes G. Ryn, a refugee from Sweden, tells us that he came to America because it became clear to him that “my rejection of positivism and moral relativism, which [have] a monopoly in Swedish academic circles, would seriously impair, not to say preclude, a career of scholarship in my own country.”

But the sympathy dissipates in the face of gems like these: “But what does it mean to try to act morally? It means not to go ahead before having asked the question, ‘Is this plan moral?’ ” How true! And: “The moral man is striving to be moral.” Indubitably! And: “The nature of ethical conscience is revealed only very imperfectly and ambiguously to the person who is morally confused.” Well, of course! I could go on, but I won’t. Are these profundities or banalities? Given the solemnity with which these insights are propounded, one could be mesmerized into thinking them profound. But the alert reader will quickly realize that these truths are so true as to be virtually tautologous. And such truths are usually trivial to the point of boredom.

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Dale Vree

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Democracy and the Ethical Life: A Philosophy of Politics and Community By Claes G. Ryn Louisiana State University Press, 208 pp., $10.95 One approaches with sympathy this book by a young conservative political theorist at the Catholic University of America. Claes G. Ryn, a refugee from Sweden, tells us that he came to America because it became clear to him that “my rejection of positivism and moral relativism, which [have] a monopoly in Swedish academic circles, would seriously impair, not to say preclude, a career of scholarship in my own country.”

But the sympathy dissipates in the face of gems like these: “But what does it mean to try to act morally? It means not to go ahead before having asked the question, ‘Is this plan moral?’ ” How true! And: “The moral man is striving to be moral.” Indubitably! And: “The nature of ethical conscience is revealed only very imperfectly and ambiguously to the person who is morally confused.” Well, of course! I could go on, but I won’t. Are these profundities or banalities? Given the solemnity with which these insights are propounded, one could be mesmerized into thinking them profound. But the alert reader will quickly realize that these truths are so true as to be virtually tautologous. And such truths are usually trivial to the point of boredom.