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Volume 7 Issue 2 Spring 2014 A Journal of Georgetown University’s Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy Editor-in-Chief Jordan Rudinsky Managing Editor Christina Eickenroht Section Editors Andrew Schilling (The Forum) ZongXian Eugene Ang (The Chamber) Nicholas E. Richards (The Archive) Michael Lessman (The Sanctuary) Evelyn Flashner (The Parlor) Louis Cona (The Clock Tower) Copy Editor Mitchell Tu Utraque Unum Georgetown University’s seal is based directly on the Great Seal of the United States of America. Instead of an olive branch and arrows in the Amer- ican eagle’s right and left talons, Georgetown’s eagle is clutching a globe and calipers in its right talon and a cross in its left talon. The American seal’s eagle holds a banner in its beak that states, E Pluribus Unum, or “Out of Many, One”, in reference to the many different people and states creating a union. The Georgetown seal’s eagle holds a banner in its beak that states, Utraque Unum. As the official motto of Georgetown University, Utraque Unum is often translated as “Both One” or “Both and One” and is taken from Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians. This motto is found in a Latin translation of Ephesians 2:14: ipse est enim pax nostra qui fecit utraque unum. The King James Version of the Bible says, “For He [Christ] is our peace, who hath made both one”. Utraque Unum is the Latin phrase to describe Paul’s concept of unity between Jews and Gentiles; that through Jesus Christ both are one. In view of the Georgetown seal, the motto represents pursuing knowledge of the earthly (the world and calipers) and the spiritual (the cross). Faith and reason should not be exclusive. In unity faith and reason enhance the pursuit of knowledge. Acknowledgements: The publication of Utraque Unum was made possible by the generous support of Bill Mumma, Georgetown University Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service Class of 1981, as well as the Collegiate Network. The Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy additionally wishes to acknowledge the generous support of The Veritas Fund as administered by the Manhattan Insti- tute, the Thomas W. Smith Foundation, and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. The Tocqueville Forum promotes events and activities devoted to furthering and deepening student understanding of the American constitutional order and its roots in the Western philosophical and religious traditions. The Tocqueville Fo- rum sponsors these activities solely through the contributions of generous sup- porters of its mission. If you would like further information about supporting the Tocqueville Forum, please e-mail [email protected] or visit http://government.georgetown.edu/tocquevilleforum. As always, we welcome your thoughts and comments regarding this journal. If you are or once were a Georgetown University student, professor or staff mem- ber we would welcome the opportunity to review your work for publication in Utraque Unum. In addition to writers, we are looking for section editors, art- ists, graphic designers and web designers. Please e-mail the editors at utraque. [email protected] for these inquiries. Cultivating Knowledge of America and the West TOCQUEVILLE FORUM AT GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY www.TocquevilleForum.org | Ph 202.687.8501 T | Utraque Unum Spring 2014 Volume 7, Issue 2 Table of Contents From the Editor-in-Chief .........................................................................1 About The Tocqueville Forum The Mystery of Education, by Professor Joshua Mitchell . 2 The Forum (Articles on Political Philosophy) The Three Waves of Modernity, Revisited: Toward Souls Mired in the Instantaneous Now: On Moder- nity’s Nominalist and Gnostic Rejection of Nature and Adoption of Historical Consciousness, Or “If Hegel Just Stuck with Augustine Everything Would Be Fine,” by Kieran Raval. 4 Absolute Power: Then and Now, by Matthew Vorsatz ...........................................10 The Modern Virus: Individualism in a Contingent World, by Amanda Wynter ......................15 The Chamber (Articles on Law and Politics) Letting the Genie out of the Bottle: Why Strong and Wealthy Governments Are Also Responsible for Ethnic Conflicts, by Kee En Chong. 19 How to Understand the Left/Right Polarity: A Historical View, by Joshua Dill ......................23 Shades of Grey: Regime Classification in Singapore, by Geeva Gopalkrishnan ........................28 The Sanctuary (Articles on Religion and Theology) Contract and Covenant Contrasted: A Study in the Theology of John Locke and the English Puritans, by Caleb Morell .............................................................................33 One God, Two Revelations, by Hope E. Edwards ................................................40 The Archive (Articles on History) To Make a Nation: British Workers, National Identity, and the American Civil War, by Kevin Baird ....45 Who’s Right, Whose Might: Conceptions of Justice in Medieval and Eighteenth-Century France, by Jordan Rudinsky ............................................................................52 The Parlor (Articles on Literature, Film, Music, Plays, and Art) Royall Tyler’s The Algerine Captive: Satirizing a National Agenda, by Amy Reavis ....................59 Prophet-Freaks: A Tocquevillian Consideration of the Grotesque in American Literature as Pathology and Remedy, by Christina Eickenroht ..........................................................62 “Less Noble Callings:” Journey, Crucible Moment, and Holocaust Confrontation in Contemporary Jewish-American Fiction, by Ian Philbrick ......................................................70 The Clock Tower (Articles on Georgetown) Making the Dantean Pilgrimage at Georgetown: An Ignatian Interpretation of Dante’s Commedia and What It Means for Georgetown, by Kevin D . Sullivan. .74 The Quest for “Jesuit Heaven”: Searching for the Lost Relics of Georgetown, by Michael Fischer and Kevin D . Sullivan ................................................................................79 The Editor’s Desk ear reader: I was flipping through my grandmother’s old high school yearbook recently, and a Dphoto caught my eye. It featured two students writing on a chalkboard with several posters hanging over their heads on the wall. The posters read: “You are educated if you can do what you ought whether you want to do it or not.” “The happiest people are those who educate their tastes so that they can appreciate and enjoy the best.” “The secret of self-education lies in planning your own leisure.” Virtue, good taste, and leisure—somehow, according to this earlier generation, education ought to be directed toward these things. Looking up from the page, I thought back to my own high school hallways, where the typical post- ers on the wall sought to impress upon students the financial incentives of their education, with graphs comparing the expected earnings of those who earn their diplomas against those who do not. The underlying message was clear: we were engaged in our studies for the sake of their financial return. This small contrast between high school wall posters reflects a significant shift in our public phi- losophy of education that has taken place over the last half-century. Seventy years ago, economist Karl Polanyi observed the totalizing effect the free market had on society. He feared society would become “adjunct to the market.” Sure enough, now it seems the market has subsumed our educa- tional institutions too. Government officials tend to reinforce the economic view of education when- ever they touch on the subject. On the campaign trail in 2008, for example, then-Senator Obama told a Denver audience, “Education is the currency of the Information Age, no longer just a pathway to opportunity and success but a prerequisite… In this kind of economy, countries who out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow.” Overall, this shift in our public philosophy of education suggests greater trends of growing ma- terialism, financial angst, and diminished regard for the humanities among Americans. As editors of Utraque Unum, we take it as our task to counter these trends, not with cries of despondency but by demonstrating that the study of the humanities can indeed foster virtue, good taste, and the creativ- ity needed to turn leisure into the basis of a robust culture, to borrow Josef Pieper’s language. We hope you find the essays that follow to be winsome demonstrations of that fact. Special thanks are owed to the dutiful and dedicated editors who did the substantive work to produce this issue. Mitchell Tu’s faithful service in the not-so-glorious role of Copy-Editor was sec- ond to none. Three new Section Editors, Nick Richards, Evelyn Flashner, and Louis Cona, deserve recognition for learning the job quickly and performing it well. I also could not have done it with- out the consistent good editing of veterans Andrew Schilling, Michael Lessman, and Eugene Ang. Finally, I owe special thanks to my Managing Editor, Christina Eickenroht, whose organization, responsibility, and timeliness ensured that we got this issue out on time. Sincerely, Jordan Rudinsky Editor-in-Chief ABOUT THE FORUM The Mystery of Education Professor Joshua Mitchell he essays in the Spring 2014 issue of as students discover that ideas are, not the dead Utraque Unum prompt me to write not possessions of their teachers, but living ques- T in my capacity as the Director of the tions for them. And, like all living things, ideas Tocqueville Forum, but rather as a professor are never passed to