Jean Bethke Elshtain: Politics, Ethics, and Society

by Debra Erickson (Editor), Michael Le Chevallier (Editor)

Overview

Jean Bethke Elshtain (1941–2013) was a noted ethicist, political philosopher, and public intellectual. Her four decades of scholarship defy easy categorization: she wrote both seminal works of theory and occasional pieces for the popular press, and she was variously viewed as radical and conservative, feminist and traditionalist, anti-war and pro-interventionist. Jean Bethke Elshtain: Politics, Ethics, and Society is the first attempt to evaluate Elshtain’s entire published body of work and to give shape to a wide-ranging scholarly career, with an eye to her work’s ongoing relevance. This collection of essays brings together scholars and public intellectuals from across the spectrum of disciplines in which Elshtain wrote. The volume is organized around four themes, which identify the central concerns that shaped Elshtain’s thought: (1) the nature of politics; (2) politics and religion; (3) international relations and just war; and (4) the end(s) of political life. The essays have been chosen not only for the expertise of each contributor as it bears on Elshtain’s work but also for their interpretive and analytic scope. This volume introduces readers to the work of a key contemporary thinker, using Elshtain’s writing as a lens through which to reflect on central political and scholarly debates of the last few decades. Jean Bethke Elshtain will be of great interest to specialists researching Elshtain and to scholars of multiple disciplines, particularly political theory, international relations, and religion.

Contributors: Debra Erickson Sulai, Michael Le Chevallier, Robin W. Lovin, William A. Galston, Arlene W. Saxonhouse, Don Browning, Peter Berkowitz, Nancy J. Hirschmann, Michael Kessler, Lisa Sowle Cahill, Nigel Biggar, Gilbert Meilaender, Eric Gregory, Daniel Philpott, Marc LiVecche, Nicholas Rengger, John D. Carlson, Chris Brown, Michael Walzer, James Turner Johnson, Erik Owens, Francis Fukuyama, Carl Gershman, and Patrick J. Deneen.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780268103088
Publisher:	University of Notre Dame Press
Publication date:	04/30/2018
Series:	Catholic Ideas for a Secular World
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	390
File size:	824 KB

About the Author

Michael Le Chevallier is a Ph.D. candidate in religious ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Debra Erickson is an instructor in philosophy at Bloomsburg University.

Read an Excerpt

When Jean Bethke Elshtain’s Democracy on Trial appeared in 1995, it attracted great attention because it challenged the democratic triumphalism that still prevailed in the United States in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dramatic expansion of democracy around the world. The book’s central message was that, while the threat to democracy from without had diminished, the threat from within had grown more acute. Democracy was vulnerable to a variety of internal crises—a weakening of democratic civil society; the disintegration of the family and other social webs that had once helped to morally ground individuals and prepare them for democratic citizenship; the rise of political cynicism and even despair; and a societal vacuum that was being filled by an increasingly ubiquitous state.

If Democracy on Trial was a fire bell in a night of pervasive complacency, today we no longer feel so confident and invulnerable. The 2008 financial crisis in the U.S., the worst since the Great Depression, has been followed by a protracted period of sluggish economic growth. Even more worrisome has been a deepening crisis of governance marked by paralyzing political polarization and a loss of confidence in the U.S. capacity to solve its internal problems and provide leadership in an increasingly unstable world. Matters are even worse in Europe, where populist parties of the left and right are gaining strength and the Greek bailout crisis has highlighted the danger of growing debt in relation to output, a problem that is compounded by demographic trends that are shifting unfavorably the ratio of workers to pensioners. Elsewhere in the world, the rising power of China, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and its threat to countries on its periphery, and the rise of ISIS in the Middle East and Iran’s growing influence all point to a shift in power globally away from the U.S. and Europe, democracy’s traditional heartland, and raise questions about the future of democratic civilization.

Such trends are not unrelated to the decline of citizenship and moral responsibility that Elshtain first identified in Democracy on Trial. Her worry two decades ago that “America’s position in the world will falter” as a result of its trials of democracy at home now seems prophetic (DT, 37). Elshtain was an integrative thinker, a public intellectual who tried to explain the relationship of political and economic crises to underlying intellectual and moral trends that affect the capacity of democratic societies to act responsibly and to defend democratic values. As such, she was drawn to moral leaders like Vaclav Havel and Pope John Paul II, who were able to connect the defense of human dignity to the survival of democratic society in the face of threats from totalitarian political forces and nihilistic social movements. She was also a great admirer of thinkers like Alexis de Tocqueville, who understood both the importance for democracy of both a vibrant civil society and the extent to which democratic culture needs to be rooted in religious traditions and values. Like them, she worried that the growth of secularism could erode the moral and cultural foundations of democracy.

One such thinker is Jonathan Sacks, England’s former Chief Rabbi, who has drawn special attention to the decline of religion. Following the London riots in the summer of 2011, Sacks wrote that the violence was “the bursting of a dam of potential trouble that has been building for years,” especially “the collapse of families and communities [that] leaves in its wake unsocialized young people.” He called these young people “the victims of a tsunami of wishful thinking that washed across the West saying that you can have sex without the responsibility of marriage, children without the responsibility of parenthood, social order without the responsibility of citizenship, liberty without the responsibility of morality and self-esteem without the responsibility of work and earned achievement.” The financial troubles, he added, simply grew from that failure of responsibility: “Good and otherwise sensible people were persuaded that you could spend more than you earn, incur debt at unprecedented levels and consume the world’s resources without thinking about who will pay the bill and when….We have been spending our moral capital with the same reckless abandon that we have been spending our financial capital.”

For Rabbi Sacks, the charred ruins of London neighborhoods are a symptom of a process of civilizational decay that is affecting, to one degree or another, all of the established democracies of the West. Here we have “democracy on trial,” but at a later stage of decay and in a different, much starker context. In Sacks’ view, the solution will require nothing less than “the remoralization of society,” a process that will have to be driven by a religious revival, since it is religion, he believes, that fosters “moral character, self-discipline, willpower and personal responsibility.” The loss of faith is responsible for the weakening of such attributes, according to Sacks, and only its revival will enable modern democracy to recover its strength and viability. The very existence of democracy, in other words, is tied to the reinvigoration of religious faith. While the issue of religion and its relation to democracy is a central issue in the thought of Jean Bethke Elshtain, she believes that the most important antidote to the decline of democratic values is a revival of civil society activism. In Democracy on Trial, she suggests that the restoration of democratic citizenship and a sense of community can be achieved “when men and women, acting in common as citizens, get together and find a way to express their collective hopes and possibilities” (DT, 123-4). As examples of such common actions, she celebrates the nonviolent freedom struggles of the American civil rights movement, the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina, and the dissident movement led by Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia. Such struggles, she writes, provide evidence of democracy’s resilience, for democracy is “the dream dreamed by democrats everywhere” and “the great source of political hope in our troubled world” (DT, 117-8).

(excerpted from chapter 17)

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction: Debra Erickson and Michael Le Chevallier

Part 1. The Political Question

Introduction: Robin Lovin

1. The Context and Texts of Public Man, Private Woman: Jean Bethke Elshtain in the World of Ideas and Action by Arlene Saxonhouse

2. Becoming Jean Elshtain: Exploring the Intersections of Social Feminism and Civic Life by William Galston

3. Elshtain’s "Reflective" Ethics of Feminism and Family: An Appreciation and Critique by Don Browning

4. Striking the Balance: Burke’s Blending of Liberty, Tradition, and Reform by Peter Berkowitz

5. Reflections on Reflections: Democracy, Depression, and Disability by Nancy Hirschmann

Part 2. Cities of God and Man

Introduction: Michael Kessler

6. A Critical Appreciation of Jean Bethke Elshtain's Embodied Augustinian Realism by Nigel Biggar

7. Engaging the Mind of Elshtain on Sovereignty by Gilbert Meilaender

8. Taking Love Seriously: Elshtain’s Augustinian Voice and Modern Politics by Eric Gregory

9. Supremacy at Stake: Religion and the Sovereign State by Daniel Philpott

10. Sovereign No More? Selves, States, and God in Our Bewildering Global Environment by Lisa Sowle Cahill

Part 3. Nations and Citizens at Peace and War

Introduction: Marc LiVecche

11. The Education of a Just War Thinker by John Carlson

12. The Effect of Perspectives of Thinking about Sovereignty: a Dialogue with Jean Bethke Elshtain by James Turner Johnson

13. Two Sovereigns? Violence and the Ambiguities of Jean Bethke Elshtain’s Christian Realism by Nicholas Rengger

14. A New, But Still a Just War Against Terror by Chris Brown

15. Just War and Religion: Reflections on the Work of Jean Elshtain by Michael Walzer

Part 4. The End(s) of Political Life

Introduction: Erik Owens

16. Civil Society and Political Society by Francis Fukuyama

17. Religion and Democracy: Why Each Needs the Other by Carl Gershman

18. Defending the Indefensible Liberal Consensus: The Tragic Moderation of Jean Bethke Elshtain by Patrick Deneen

19. The Limits of Politics and the Inevitability of Ethics by Robin Lovin

Editorial Reviews

Elshtain’s legacy lives on and is more vibrant and pertinent than ever . . . [this] collection analyzes [her] body of work from contemporary theoretical and applied perspectives.” —The Review of Politics

"The book virtually stands alone in the literature, offering readers in political science, political and social theory, ethics, religious studies, and theology a window into the scholarship of a major voice at the intersection of politics, religion, and ethics in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries." —Studies in Christian Ethics

"The collection displays why Elshtain managed to succeed where so many academics fail: she risked being interesting by pursuing lines of thought or threading needles of nuance that sometimes result in other intellectuals' jealousy or in being cast out of their particular movement (as Elshtain was by some feminists for Public Man, Private Woman). Even for those largely unacquainted with her work, this collection helps us understand what made her such a provocative, relevant, and fascinating public intellectual." —Modern Theology

“Debra Erickson and Michael Le Chevalier pay wonderful homage to their teacher Jean Bethke Elshtain, and perform an important service for the rest of us who, from various distances regard her as our teacher… The essays contained in this volume pay tribute both to her scholarship and to her as a person. Perhaps most importantly, they recognize how Elshtain regarded the person as the central category of the study of politics.” —Journal of Church and State

“This collection is part analysis of Elshtain’s work, part application of her work to new problems, and part critique—but always admiration for her commitment to ethics in the political realm. . . a valuable resource to those studying Elshtain’s thinking or the various fields in which her work has made an impact.” —Reading Religion

"Jean Bethke Elshtain (1941–2013) was a distinguished political philosopher who opposed many dominant trends in her field. As the contributors to this volume point out, she closely related personal life and politics. . . . A valuable work for anyone interested in political theory and a useful companion to Elshtain’s own books, such as Sovereignty: God, State, and Self and Just War Against Terror." —Library Journal

"A rich collection of essays that helps one understand the importance of Jean Bethke Elshtain's seminal works, and further develops moral and social ideas crucial for our time." —Amitai Etzioni, author of The New Golden Rule: Community and Morality in a Democratic Society

"Debra Erickson and Michael Le Chevallier’s collection is in every way a fitting tribute to Jean Elshtain: essays by thoughtful scholars of a wide range of disciplines and viewpoints, from doctoral students to distinguished professors, covering the full range of her work from feminism to sovereignty to just war. The essays are both stimulating reading in themselves and a compelling invitation to read or reread Elshtain’s own writings." —Nathan Tarcov, Karl J. Weintraub Professor of Social Thought and Political Science and in the College, The University of Chicago

"What a wonderful tribute this collection of essays is to the person and work of Jean Elshtain who, for some forty years, was one of America's most prominent public intellectuals. The essays, of uniformly high quality, are both admiring and critical of Elshtain's work, lucidly expounding and engaging her thought while also making creative contributions of their own to political theory and social analysis. Suffusing the entire collection is the evident love these writers had, and continue to have, for the winsome, engaged, brilliant, and magnetic person that was Jean Elshtain." —Nicholas Wolterstorff, Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology, Yale University

“This book is interdisciplinary, generative, and comprehensive in its aims. It truly establishes the significance of Elshtain’s political thought for intersecting fields of politics, political and social ethics, political theology, sexual-gender politics, and social problems. Many of the contributors are a virtual listing of 'Who's Who' in religious, social, and political ethics and political theorists.” —Victor Anderson, Oberlin Theological School Professor of Ethics and Society at the Divinity School, Vanderbilt University

From the Publisher

"The collection displays why Elshtain managed to succeed where so many academics fail: she risked being interesting by pursuing lines of thought or threading needles of nuance that sometimes result in other intellectuals' jealousy or in being cast out of their particular movement (as Elshtain was by some feminists for Public Man, Private Woman). Even for those largely unacquainted with her work, this collection helps us understand what made her such a provocative, relevant, and fascinating public intellectual."

Modern Theology

Debra Erickson and Michael Le Chevalier pay wonderful homage to their teacher Jean Bethke Elshtain, and perform an important service for the rest of us who, from various distances regard her as our teacher… The essays contained in this volume pay tribute both to her scholarship and to her as a person. Perhaps most importantly, they recognize how Elshtain regarded the person as the central category of the study of politics.

Journal of Church and State

"What a wonderful tribute this collection of essays is to the person and work of Jean Elshtain who, for some forty years, was one of America's most prominent public intellectuals. The essays, of uniformly high quality, are both admiring and critical of Elshtain's work, lucidly expounding and engaging her thought while also making creative contributions of their own to political theory and social analysis. Suffusing the entire collection is the evident love these writers had, and continue to have, for the winsome, engaged, brilliant, and magnetic person that was Jean Elshtain."

Nicholas Wolterstorff

"Debra Erickson and Michael Le Chevallier’s collection is in every way a fitting tribute to Jean Elshtain: essays by thoughtful scholars of a wide range of disciplines and viewpoints, from doctoral students to distinguished professors, covering the full range of her work from feminism to sovereignty to just war. The essays are both stimulating reading in themselves and a compelling invitation to read or reread Elshtain’s own writings."

Nathan Tarcov

This collection is part analysis of Elshtain’s work, part application of her work to new problems, and part critique—but always admiration for her commitment to ethics in the political realm. . . a valuable resource to those studying Elshtain’s thinking or the various fields in which her work has made an impact.

Reading Religion

This book is interdisciplinary, generative, and comprehensive in its aims. It truly establishes the significance of Elshtain’s political thinking for intersecting fields of politics, political and social ethics, political theology, sexual-gender politics, and social problems. Many of the contributors are a virtual listing of 'Who's Who' in religious, social, and political ethics and political theorists.

Victor Anderson