Word: walzer
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...battle of giants. The Cold War heated the classroom as the Herculean minds of professors Michael Walzer and Robert Nozick dueled over the moral worth of socialism and capitalism. It was also where E.J. Dionne '73, now a syndicated columnist, learned that fighting over politics does not have to end in a nuclear meltdown...
...Price says the last true leftists, such as Michael A. Walzer, left about 15 years...
Several of the readings for the class were by Michael Walzer, a political philosopher with whom I had become acquainted in several earlier courses. Drawing on "just War" theory, Walzer had proposed a very compelling system for judging the ethics of war. His theory was clear, precise and strong. The article we read was a subsequent attempt by Walzer to address the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the question of what Western response would be justified...
Written before desert Storm had commenced, Walzer's article was little more than the academic version of throwing up his hands at the situation. Though the Iraqi aggression and brutality would seem to have merited an international response using Walzer's own arguments, he was unwilling to call for such a response when it counted. Instead, Walzer puttered around the issue, dealing with the subtleties and details of the question rather than its blatant realities...
...Walzer's inability to descend from the academic tower and make a decision on an important issue of the day is reflective of a larger tension, that between the open mind and the strong backbone. How to reconcile continual questioning with the need to make decisions on contemporary issues? It is a question that is relevant far beyond the halls of an academic institution. Both qualities are not only beneficial, they are essential in society. Each of us, consciously or unconsciously, arrives at a moral or ethical system for making decisions, yet these systems are often unexamined and sometimes flawed...