EMS and Multicultural Outreach in Sweden; Fulbright Update

 

For the past six months I’ve been living in Sweden, serving as the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in American Studies at Uppsala University. I’ve been teaching and lecturing about U.S. constitutional law, and I’ve been learning a lot about Sweden, too. I’ve been especially interested in understanding reported tensions between emergency medical service providers and immigrant communities.

As part of that work, I recently got to know an innovative community outreach program called the Person Behind the Uniform, which brings young people and first responders together to learn about each other’s lives. You can learn more about the program in an article and three documentary videos I published in the Journal of Emergency Medical Services, here. I think it’s a fantastic thing—in fact, I think it provides the philosophical seeds for reframing the entire social contract in a nation undergoing rapid demographic change.

I spoke about a set of related issues recently to the Swedish magazines Respons (here; in Swedish) and Kvartal (here; in English), and at a panel discussion at Culture House co-sponsored by the publisher Fri Tanke and the Royal Academy of Science (here; in English), and I’ve meditated for Expressen (here; in English) on why an increasingly multicultural Sweden ought to institute a civics test for citizenship (hint: it’s not especially to test immigrants). I also spoke early during my time in country to Fri Tanke for its Friday podcast series (here; in English)—and look for an interview with me to be published soon in the online journal Quillette.

Many of these discussions and publications touch on my book The Rule of the Clan, which I’m honored played a role in the thinking of Per Brinkemo as he and Johan Lundberg put together their influential edited collection Klanen (discussed here, in Swedish; see circa time stamps 1:40 and 9:50).

For anyone interested in other things I’ve published in Sweden, you might check out a series of op eds in Dagens Nyheter (about Trumpism and the philosophy of world order; about the Swedish parliamentary elections; about political roadblocks to gun control in America; and about President Trump’s then-threat to declare a national emergency to fund the border wall).

For readers who have come to this post because of their interest in the work of a Fulbright scholar, you might be interested to know that during my time here I’ve also

Donald Trump and the Rule of the Clan

A number of readers have written in the wake of the American presidential election to ask how I would read Donald Trump’s victory in light of the arguments I make in The Rule of the Clan.

I’ve just returned from a weekend away to receive a kind new review of my book by Karen Schousboe, editor-in-chief of Medieval Histories, which is based in Denmark. Because she’s a sensitive and careful reader of my work, I’d like to let her review answer the question, but I’d also like to add some thoughts of my own from a related perspective: as someone who has devoted most of his professional life to the non-partisan teaching of American constitutional law and the principles of liberal constitutional democracy.

Over the course his campaign, Donald Trump consistently flouted basic principles of democratic constitutionalism. Trump violated these principles not incidentally or at the margins of the race, but rather through specific promises that were at the heart of his campaign, as well as in his repeated public behavior toward his rivals.

John Stuart Mill and the Rule of the Clan in Sweden

Two items were published this week that brought me away from thinking about documentary film and back to The Rule of the Clan.

The first was a blog post titled “Why Libertarians Should Champion Social Liberty,” by Jerry Taylor of the Niskanen Center. Taylor advances a position that at first glance seems to run counter to core libertarian principles: he argues that “freedom is advanced by [government] preventing private racial discrimination.” This view is anathema to many libertarians, Taylors notes, who believe that government action to prevent private discrimination is “flatly immoral no matter how well-intentioned or worthwhile the consequences might be.”

But Taylor suggests that this is a misunderstanding of the libertarian tradition—one of whose patron saints, John Stuart Mill, had this to say in the first chapter of On Liberty:

Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant—society collectively, over the separate individuals who compose it—its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.

Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.

Taylor then goes on to suggest—here’s the kicker—that “Mill’s heir on this matter might well be Mark Weiner.”

… Pause …

Improbable Things in Foreign Languages

Here are three improbable things collected into one audio file: me talking 1) on Austrian radio, 2) in German, and 3) about my latest video project (“Wood, Water, Stone, Sky, Milk”). The program was broadcast recently on “Salzburg Aktuell” on radio ORF.

And while I’m on foreign languages, three nice discussions of The Rule of the Clan appeared recently in Sweden, in Dagens Nyheter, here, and in Svenska Dagbladet: a full review here and a mention here. I’ve been extraordinarily pleased with the attention given to the book there.

Finally, my friend Ulrich Haltern and I recently published an article in the EUtopia Magazine about liberal identity in Europe after the terror attacks in Paris and Copenhagen. We wrote most of the piece back in mid-January, so we’re glad to finally see it available. It was originally written in German, and it reads better in that language, but an English translation is also available.

From Salzburg to Louisville and Back Again

Greetings from Austria, where I’m spending the semester as a Fulbright scholar at the law school of the University of Salzburg. My wife and I have had a grand time getting to know this beautiful city and the mountains and valleys of the nearby Salzkammergut. If you’d like to find us, we’re living in a little baroque garret right about here:

Just behind that blue dot, up a sheer cliff, is the house where the author Stefan Zweig used to live, so we’ve been thinking a lot about The World Before Yesterday—and, in an American spirit, about the director Wes Anderson, too. Across the river is the Salzburg old town, with its winding cobblestone streets, and our favorite bakery, and our favorite butcher, with its staff who wave to us warmly on the street when they see us walk by.

Rule of the Clan Wins Grawemeyer Award

I am over the moon to share the news that The Rule of the Clan has received the 2015 Grawmeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order.

The award is the greatest honor of my professional life, and I am so grateful to everyone who supported me in ways large and small over the years.

There is great celebration taking place here in Hamden, Connecticut.

For background about the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, click here.

And here is more about the Grawemeyer Awards generally, from the Grawmeyer Awards website:

ROC discussed i svenska i na hrvatskom jeziku

I’m very pleased that The Rule of the Clan was the subject of two reviews in languages other than English this week. One review, in the Swedish magazine Axess, is by the writer, journalist, and filmmaker Bengt G. Nilsson, who calls the book “a powerful plea for the strong state governed by liberal principles.”

The second review is by Zvonimir Šikić, professor of mathematics at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, and appears in Banka.hr. Šikić writes that “libertarians, who regularly assert that the opposition between individual autonomy and the state is insurmountable, especially should consider the modern paradox of individualism, which Weiner excellently explains and documents.”

And thus the world grows smaller …

 

Odds & Ends

Five odds and ends today:

1) My discussion “The Legal Foundations of Individualism,” which I presented as a talk at the annual Telos conference in January, is now available on TELOSscope. As I explain at the start of the piece: “I’ll be addressing two questions about democracy raised by our conference description: first, ‘the reasons for its rarity and volatility’; and, second, ‘the factors that are essential for its stability.’ For each question, I’ll try to provide a concise, mildly provocative answer from my perspective as a writer and scholar about constitutional law and comparative legal history.”

Regarding the first question, “why is democracy so rare and volatile,” I write: “I think one answer we could give to this question is that democracy is volatile because the modern self is a legal achievement. There is nothing outside of law, including individual subjectivity.”

2) ICYMI (in case you missed it): the forum last month about The Rule of the Clan on Cato Unbound was really interesting—and great fun. I was very fortunate to have three thoughtful commentators from different parts of the political spectrum engage with my work: libertarian blogger Arnold Kling, American Conservative editor Daniel McCarthy, and Yale Law School professor John Fabian Witt. There were also many lively comments from readers. The editor of Cato Unbound, Jason Kuznicki of the Cato Institute, posted his own very interesting response on the website Ordinary Times, speaking to some debates within libertarian theory.

3) There were a number of responses to the Cato Unbound forum in various corners of the blogsphere, including an especially interesting discussion on The Sweep, which published another post today that comes into dialogue with my work.

4) My lead essay on Cato Unbound is now available in Spanish on La Tercera Cultura. There seem to be a number of interesting comments en español. To the translator and editors: abrazos!

5) This coming week I’ll be speaking at the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues at Dickinson College. My fellow panelists will be Prof. Carol Horning of the U.S. Army War College, Prof. Erik Love of the Sociology Department at Dickinson, and Prof. Andrew Wolff of the Dickinson Political Science Department. Earlier that day I’ll be speaking to one of Prof. Horning’s classes on international development at the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute.

6) Totally apropos of nothing I’ve discussed above: I’m looking forward to spending the weekend at a course on wilderness first aid sponsored by the Appalachian Mountain Club. If any of my readers have taken one of SOLO’s wilderness first responder courses, do let me know. See you on the trails!

 

Rule of the Clan Unbound

There’s a symposium this month about The Rule of the Clan on Cato Unbound, the online journal of the Cato Institute. My contribution is now online. In coming days there will responses by Arnold Kling, on March 12; Daniel McCarthy, on March 14; and John Fabian Witt, on March 17. I hope readers will join in the conversation, which promises to be lively and controversial.

In other news, I’ll be speaking tomorrow at Yale Law School beginning at six o’clock, and the paperback of The Rule of the Clan is now available from the good folks at Picador.

It Don’t Mean a Thing if It Ain’t …

“What can the jazz process tell us about life?” That’s the overriding theme of Trading Fours on Blog Talk Radio, hosted by Drs. Jackie Modeste and Wesley J. Watkins, IV.

I had a lively conversation about The Rule of the Clan on the show today, and in keeping with the spirit of Trading Fours—and trading fours—our discussion ranged widely. You can hear the full one-hour show through this media player (or by clicking on the link in the first paragraph):

In the course of our conversation, the three of us had a lively exchange about jazz and democracy I thought worth sharing. Among other things, it seemed like an American version of the discussion I had with Prof. Stefan Kirste about the relation between law and musical aesthetics:

Here’s an excerpt from the conversation, which in the audio file begins at about 33:00:

Me: What liberal government has to sell has to be better than what’s on offer from other social theories.

Jackie: Right.

Me: And if liberal government is working, if it’s corrupt along any lines, certainly those of nepotism, if it’s ineffective, then liberal government deserves to lose. But I don’t think it should. And that’s why I think it’s important to defend central government, to defend modern liberal ideals of robust government capable of vindicating the public interest and thereby liberating individual energy.

Jackie: OK, yes. Yes! So what I’m thinking about is when we—

Me: Jackie, sorry to interrupt you. Something that Wes said … maybe we could play with this a little bit. I’m trying to draw connections to the jazz concerns that you have here on the show. Maybe government is like a band leader. And so if you’re thinking about Duke Ellington, right, and the kind of music that he was able to enable, if you don’t have a good band leader, then someone is going to steal that show and the swing is going to be undermined. I’m not sure if … is that the case in jazz?

Jackie: Wes, do you want to talk about that?