The Very Goodness of Politics

Against those who consider politics a consequence of the Fall, Chad Pecknold argues that politics is inscribed in our nature—as well as in our passions.

The following remarks were prepared for a panel on “The Creation of Politics” at the annual Fall Conference of the de Nicola Center for Ethics & Culture at the University of Notre Dame.

Scholars from Robert Markus to Paul Weithman to Larry Siedentop have argued that Augustine is not an opponent of modernism, but the very inventor of the individual, the c…