There was a time, before I was in graduate school, when political philosophy pretty much ceased to exist. The positivists thought there were only two things you could do: conceptual analysis or empirical investigation. Any kind of political theory or even ethical theory was nonsense.

Choice matters. You might have the opportunity to eat a nutritious diet, though you might choose to eat a lousy diet. What matters is the opportunity.

People have a deep need to be legislators, and the idea of autonomy has become very precious.

When a profession is protected by academic freedom and tenure, it tends to turn inward. To a large extent that's good.

After all, the nation is not just an entity. It's a story. It's a story of what's salient, what brought us together, what we are willing to live and die for.

It's not as though there aren't many, many art works and many other cultures, but there was something special about the civic nature of the Greek theater. All the citizens stopped working. They came into these theaters. It wasn't like a Broadway theater where you sit in the dark and you expect to be passively entertained. You're in this theater, amphitheater, in bright sunlight looking at your fellow citizens, recognizing their faces, and thinking with them about the future of your city. I think very few cultures have had a theatrical tradition that is quite so civic.

In our swamp of media sensationalism and group-speak, BOSTON REVIEW stands out as a bold voice for reason and argument, one of the very, very few places that offers intelligence, integrity, and variety.