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Liberal-Democracy Prepared for the Legal Theory Workshop at Yale Law School February 2010 Dear colleagues: What follows are excerpts from three chapters of a book manuscript that I am working on. This is most definitely a work in progress, so there is still time for me to really take your comments into account in my thinking. I’ve included the table of contents for the whole book, to satisfy (or pique) your curiosity, but I have shared text from only one line of argument about popular sovereignty and representative government, leaving out almost entirely a separate but intertwined argument about religion. (That’s for another workshop…) Thanks very much for having a look at this. -Bryan Garsten The heart of a heartless world: liberal religion and modern liberty Bryan Garsten DRAFT: Not for circulation or citation. © 2010 Bryan Garsten 1 Table of Contents Chapter One: The liberal stance towards authority..................................................................4 Religion and freedom...................................................................................................................................... Freedom through representation .................................................................................................................. Neither ruling nor being ruled....................................................................................................................... Being sovereign without ruling...................................................................................................................... A more modest sovereignty........................................................................................................................... Recent debates about religion and liberalism.............................................................................................. Summary of the argument.............................................................................................................................. PART ONE: Politics Chapter Two: Usurping popular sovereignty............................................................................. Who speaks for God?..................................................................................................................................... Who speaks for the People? .......................................................................................................................... Re-interpreting the French Revolution........................................................................................................ Re-interpreting tyranny of the majority........................................................................................................ The problem of democratic government..................................................................................................... Why usurpation is unavoidable ..................................................................................................................... Usurpation in America ................................................................................................................................... Napoleon as exemplar .................................................................................................................................... Chapter Three: Competing to speak for the people................................................................... Elitist elements of representative government............................................................................................ Beyond the mixed-government interpretation............................................................................................ Who will separate the powers? ...................................................................................................................... Multiple and competing representations...................................................................................................... How to think about voting ............................................................................................................................ Carl Schmitt’s misunderstanding................................................................................................................... Against cabinet government .......................................................................................................................... Chapter Four: Being Represented.............................................................................................. Partial and divided identifications................................................................................................................. Trust and jealousy............................................................................................................................................ Civil society as a vantage point...................................................................................................................... The virtues of alienation................................................................................................................................. Imagination and self-representation ............................................................................................................. Judging .............................................................................................................................................................. 2 PART TWO: Religion Chapter Five: Usurping divine right .......................................................................................... The instability of divine right......................................................................................................................... Parties and sects............................................................................................................................................... Representation in the Church........................................................................................................................ Prophets and miracles..................................................................................................................................... Unifying the two heads of the eagle ............................................................................................................. Civil religion ..................................................................................................................................................... Political theology ............................................................................................................................................. Chapter Six: Competing to speak for God ................................................................................. Polytheism and pluralism ............................................................................................................................... Hebrew federalism .......................................................................................................................................... The multiplication of sects............................................................................................................................. Church to sect to denomination ................................................................................................................... Vox populi vs. Vox dei...................................................................................................................................... The self-destruction of Christianity? ............................................................................................................ Chapter Seven: Being liberal ...................................................................................................... Varieties of non-atheism ................................................................................................................................ Why liberalism needed the Romantics ......................................................................................................... Kant, French liberalism, and American Transcendentalism ..................................................................... The strange desire to believe ......................................................................................................................... Illusion and self-deception............................................................................................................................. The pleasures of the unhappy consciousness.............................................................................................. The dangers of self-deification and idolatry................................................................................................ Ecstasis, standing outside ourselves............................................................................................................... Chapter Eight: Judging liberalism ............................................................................................. Why being represented requires being liberal ............................................................................................. Why being liberal requires being represented ............................................................................................. The problem of internal authority and identity..........................................................................................
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