Dear UNLV Prelaw Students,
I have a few application fee waivers for Elon University School of Law in Greensboro, NC. You can learn more about the school at law.elon.edu. If you're planning to apply to Elon for Fall 2010, contact me at rebecca.wood@unlv.edu or via the Facebook page (http://facebook.com/unlvprelaw).
Best,
UNLV Prelaw
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
NEXT WEEK! Tocqueville on the Democratic "Heart Disease" of Individualism
Tocqueville on the Democratic “Heart Disease”
of Individualism
A lecture free and open to the public (no ticket required) by
Peter Augustine Lawler
Dana Professor of Government, Berry College
Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America explains why individualism is the primary
threat to liberty in a modern democracy. Individualism, as he describes it, is the very
opposite of personal assertiveness. It is the apathetic withdrawal into oneself, based
on the mistaken judgment that love is more trouble than it is worth. Individualism, by
isolating citizens from one another, makes them easy prey for despots. And
Tocqueville’s fear is that the democratic development might culminate in a kind of
“soft despotism” of meddlesome, schoolmarmish bureaucrats. Tocqueville also
notices, however, that Americans have some pretty singular ways of combating
individualism, including religion, strong local government, the moral doctrine of selfinterested
cooperation with others, and a kind of spirit of association. So today’s
students of Tocqueville sometimes misunderstand him by exaggerating the real threat
of soft despotism in our country.
Professor Lawler has written or edited a dozen books. His most recent include
Postmodernism Rightly Understood, Aliens in America: The Strange Truth About Our Souls,
Stuck with Virtue: The American Individual and Our Biotechnological Future, and Homeless and
at Home in America.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
7:30 p.m.
Barrick Museum Auditorium
Sponsored and hosted by
UNLV Great Works Academic Certificate program and
UNLV Department of Political Science
For more information contact Professor David Fott, 895-4187,
dfott@unlv.nevada.edu
of Individualism
A lecture free and open to the public (no ticket required) by
Peter Augustine Lawler
Dana Professor of Government, Berry College
Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America explains why individualism is the primary
threat to liberty in a modern democracy. Individualism, as he describes it, is the very
opposite of personal assertiveness. It is the apathetic withdrawal into oneself, based
on the mistaken judgment that love is more trouble than it is worth. Individualism, by
isolating citizens from one another, makes them easy prey for despots. And
Tocqueville’s fear is that the democratic development might culminate in a kind of
“soft despotism” of meddlesome, schoolmarmish bureaucrats. Tocqueville also
notices, however, that Americans have some pretty singular ways of combating
individualism, including religion, strong local government, the moral doctrine of selfinterested
cooperation with others, and a kind of spirit of association. So today’s
students of Tocqueville sometimes misunderstand him by exaggerating the real threat
of soft despotism in our country.
Professor Lawler has written or edited a dozen books. His most recent include
Postmodernism Rightly Understood, Aliens in America: The Strange Truth About Our Souls,
Stuck with Virtue: The American Individual and Our Biotechnological Future, and Homeless and
at Home in America.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
7:30 p.m.
Barrick Museum Auditorium
Sponsored and hosted by
UNLV Great Works Academic Certificate program and
UNLV Department of Political Science
For more information contact Professor David Fott, 895-4187,
dfott@unlv.nevada.edu
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