Aliens in America: The Strange Truth About Our Souls [Hardcover]

Peter Augustine Lawler (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Rather than another brief about burgeoning immigration or extraterrestrial visitation, this is an analysis of the two strains of American political philosophy usually called liberalism and conservatism. The thinkers Lawler analyzes and juxtaposes aren't culled from the yelling mouths of TV talk shows, however, but instead include, to mention the best known, Francis Fukuyama, Carl Sagan, and Richard Rorty on the left, Jesuit political theologian John Courtney Murray and novelist Walker Percy on the right, and, beyond them, Jefferson and Tocqueville. Classical philosophy and Christianity inform the entire discussion. As the book, more a loose continuum of essays than a continuous argument, proceeds, it becomes ever clearer that Lawler sees all Americans as aliens, in the Christian sense that all souls rightly belong to God and find their rest, their home, only in him. From the Christian perspective, liberalism's commitment to equality, the individual, and happiness against hierarchy, community, and reality seems so much vain perfectionism. Not that equality, the individual, and happiness are worthless; they simply aren't the highest goods. Thoughtfully discriminating what is questionable from what is noble and true in the thought of the figures he discusses, Lawler provokes serious thought about the philosophical and religious foundations of American politics. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 298 pages
• Publisher: Isi Books (July 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1882926714
• ISBN-13: 978-1882926718
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #535,764 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cultural Criticism at the Highest Level, September 18, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Aliens in America: The Strange Truth About Our Souls (Hardcover)

This is an extraordinary book which reminds me a bit of Allan Bloom's best-seller, "The Closing of the American Mind." The book is a startlingly original reflection on the kinds of trends in American culture (high, low, and popular) that we read about every day, and about which we all have some not very well considered opinions. But like Bloom, Peter Augustine Lawler brings to these reflections a deep learning in philosophy and political theory, so that you leave the book not only with a series of remarkable insights ("I've never thought about it that way before!") but also with an understanding of the philosophical sources of our present discontents.

"Aliens in America" ranges widely--from Richard Rorty and Martin Heidegger to David Brooks's "Bobos in Paradise," from John Courtney Murray and Thomas Jefferson to the novelist Walker Percy--but perhaps Lawler's main foil is Francis Fukuyama, who after the fall of communism made famous the idea of the "End of History," and who more recently has speculated about questions of biotechnology in "Our Post-Human Future." To my mind, at least, Lawler gets the better of Fukuyama, showing how history can never come to an end, and how there can be no post-human future, because of the ineradicable human fact of self-conscious mortality. There is something genuinely profound behind the book's joshing title and sub-title.

Like Bloom's "Closing of the American Mind," "Aliens in America" will probably be understood as some kind of conservative book. But unlike Bloom, Lawler is no wailing Jeremiah, denouncing a hundred years of intellectual history and offering secular salvation only to a chosen few. Rather, Lawler's book is filled with wit and good humour and hope; and like Tocqueville, he can see with an unprejudiced eye both what is bad and what is good about modern America.

Heartily, even fervently recommended.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Book!, August 29, 2002

By 

Anne - See all my reviews

This review is from: Aliens in America: The Strange Truth About Our Souls (Hardcover)

As a long-time Walker Percy fan, I was initially attracted to this book to once again be reminded of Percy's brilliance. I was not disappointed as there is plenty of Percy. Professor Lawler has drawn upon the Moviegoer's Binx Bolling, the telescope metaphor, and more for us Percy devotees. The book provides new insights into Percy that continue to surprise me. Beyond Percy, this wonderful book draws upon classical philosophy, Aquinas, and actually makes natural law accessible to help remind us all that we are indeed "strangers in a strange land."

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not So Lost in the Cosmos, August 30, 2002

By 

kathleen Oehling (Southborough, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Aliens in America: The Strange Truth About Our Souls (Hardcover)

Peter Lawler is an insightful observer of the human soul. Part social theorist, part political scientist, and part psychologist, Lawler helps make sense of the moral and spiritual discontents that Americans increasingly experience today. Over and against those who would biologically transform human nature in order to rid us of all disease and discomfort, Lawler shows how (and why) we can live well in a world that, at best, ambiguously fulfills our natural desires.