Gary Rosen's review of Susan Neiman's latest book Moral Clarity is great reading, and surely makes a decent case that Ms. Neiman, who stands on the political left, has produced a work worthy of broad attention.

Mr. Rosen does not hesitate to explore Ms. Neiman's frustrations with the increasingly intellectual and cultural vapidity of her leftist peers vis-á-vis universal principles. One passage stands out:

Ms. Neiman points to many factors in the left's retreat from universal principles. The demise of socialism has played a role, as has despair over the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. But the real source, she suggests, is a "conceptual collapse," a self-destructive descent into identity politics, postmodern theory and victimology. Her peers have become paralyzed, she writes, by the view that moral judgments are, ultimately, little more than "a hypocritical attempt to assert arbitrary power over those with whom you disagree."

Part of Ms. Neiman's prescribed antidote is a call to the Great Books catalog of western civilization (often touted by conservatives, like the late-Allan Bloom, as curative of many social ills). No doubt her proposal will raise the ire of multi-culturalists and feminists committed to radical egalitarianism, but I would assume she is more than capable of defending herself before such critics. The only "danger" in Ms. Neiman's idea is that she opens the door to the value of Tradition; such backward looking interests do not sit well with progressives committed solely to what lies ahead. But tradition, and the intellectuals embedded therein, can be formidable pedagogues. That is scary to a lot of folks.

Of course, I am the first to admit that many of my conservative peers have also turned a blind eye and deaf ear to the so-called western canon. I have not completed it myself, though I was definitely educated in that canon's great tradition. There is much to learn; and many Americans are like many fundamentalists, as both the progressive and the fundamentalist act with little regard to the storehouse of knowledge available in the literature and traditions of the past. Both types of zealots forget that many of the questions of today have been amply discussed by our forefathers, civil and religious. In many cases, answers and solutions have been given. The trend to deify our own era at the expense of other times is rooted in conceit and arrogance. And it is, at present, a perilous conceit.

Peace.

BG