Word: soulcraft
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...problem is that in the long run, as we have thus far witnessed, any plan that does not engage the community is bound to fail. As Michael Sandel, a political thinker who teaches government here, contends, good government requires what he calls "successful republican (small r, to be sure!) soulcraft" and involves a gentler kind of tutelage. For example, the political economy of citizenship that informed 19th-century American life sought to cultivate not only commonality but also the independence and judgement to deliberate well about the common good. It worked not by coercion or deprivation as most...
...value-neutral pretenses and actively seek to mold citizens to embody certain virtues so that they will be better equipped to share in self-government. Their contention is that confining politics solely to the economic distribution debate between libertarians and egalitarians is no longer appropriate. The new "statescraft as soulcraft" (to use Will's term) may well be inevitable, and it is not the purpose of this essay to debate the pros and cons of such a return to formative politics (it's taking a whole term to even frame the debate in Government 1091 and would be impossible here...
Will is planning to lecture on "Big Government and the National Idea," "Statecraft as Soulcraft, Then and Now" and "Federalism and Its Critics." He will hold office hours on Fridays...