Augustine and the Limits of Politics

by Jean Bethke Elshtain, Patrick J. Deneen (Foreword)

Now with a new foreword by Patrick J. Deneen. Jean Bethke Elshtain brings Augustine's thought into the contemporary political arena and presents an Augustine who created a complex moral map that offers space for loyalty, love, and care, as well as a chastened form of civic virtue. The result is a controversial book about one of the world's greatest and most complex thinkers whose thought continues to haunt all of Western political philosophy. What is our business "within this common mortal life?" Augustine asks and bids us to ask ourselves. What can Augustine possibly have to say about the conditions that characterize our contemporary society and appear to put democracy in crisis? Who is Augustine for us now and what do his words have to do with political theory? These are the underlying questions that animate Jean Bethke Elshtain's fascinating engagement with the thought and work of Augustine, the ancient thinker who gave no political theory per se and refused to offer up a positive utopia. In exploring the questions, Why Augustine, why now?

Elshtain argues that Augustine's great works display a canny and scrupulous attunement to the here and now and the very real limits therein. She discusses other aspects of Augustine's thought as well, including his insistence that no human city can be modeled on the heavenly city, and further elaborates on Hannah Arendt's deep indebtedness to Augustine's understanding of evil. Elshtain also presents Augustine's arguments against the pridefulness of philosophy, thereby linking him to later currents in modern thought, including Wittgenstein and Freud.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Theology, Religion, Christian

174 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Jean Bethke Elshtain is an American political philosopher. She is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and is a contributing editor for The New Republic. She is, in addition, newly the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Chair in the Foundations of American Freedom at Georgetown University. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and she has served on the Boards of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and the National Humanities Center. She is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and has received nine honorary degrees. In 2002, Elshtain received the Frank J. Goodnow award, the highest award for distinguished service to the profession given by the American Political Science Association.

The focus of Elshtain's work is an exploration of the relationship between politics and ethics. Much of her work is concerned with the parallel development of male and female gender roles as they pertain to public and private social participation. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks she has been one of the more visible academic supporters of U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Jean Bethke Elshtain, scholar of religion and political philosophy, 1941-2013 http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2013...

Reviews

[Matthew Loftus · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brief, lively engagement with Augustine and contemporary political theory.

[Simon Duffy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This great little book does a number of important things. First it makes St Augustine relevant for the modern reader and clears away the hundreds of years between us and him. Elshtain demolishes some of the prejudices that might keep us away from him. Second it offers insight to a way of thinking about society and politics which is rooted in love, but which is realistic about the nature of man.

Here's just one example - Augustine on the wonder of human diversity:

"Could anyone fail to see, on rational consideration, how marvellous it is that, despite the countless numbers of mankind, and despite the great similarity among men through their possession of a common nature, each individual has his own unique appearance? The truth is that if there were not this underlying similarity man could not be distinguished as a separate species from the other animals, while at the same time, without those individual differences, one man could not be distinguished from another. Thus we acknowledge that men are alike, and equally we discover that they are different. Now it is the observation of the differences between men that should arouse our wonder; for the likeness would seem to be normal, as something demanded by our common nature. And yet because it is rarities that arouse wonder, we are much more astonished when we find two people so alike that we are always, or very frequently making mistakes when we try to distinguish them."

[Abdur-Rahman Syed · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want read St. Augustine but are intimidated by the size and density of City of God , this is the book for you. It's not a Cliff Notes summary--rather it pulls out and elaborates on what I find most relevant about St. Augustine's vision of politics--that it is necessary but also necessarily flawed. The good life, in other words, lies beyond politics.

And, of course, Elshtain is worth reading on her own. One of a rare breed today of serious intellectuals who take religion seriously.

[Troy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book that displays the Augustinian love for the world as a means of Christian devotion. It primarily focuses on 4 topics: Identity of Self, Evil, Augustinian Politics, and how we should order love. I enjoy Jean’s exposition on Augustine’s views, but I find a major point of disagreement on her views of how Augustine viewed politics and that characterization. Besides that it is a very well written book that would pair well after a reading of the City of God.

[Joe Natali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elshtain provides an extremely compelling discussion of Augustine's political theory.

[Jon Coutts · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine entry in the "hey I'm no Augustine scholar but here's a [highly lucid] take on what I've learned teaching him all these years" genre. Seriously. Quite helpful.