Liberty and Community: A Liberal Resolution

Much has been written in the last few years regarding Leo Strauss's political attachments, especially with respect to his purported influence over American neoconservatives. Problematically, Strauss scrupulously avoided explicit ideological entanglements, rarely addressed particular policy debates, and left little guidance for the statesman or thoughtful commentator interested in drawing practical political inferences from his philosophical writing. To add further ambiguity to already muddy waters, Strauss's discussion of the relation between prudence and philosophic insight coupled with the many and incompatible roles he assigns to the philosopher within the city make it unclear if there is anything at all that philosophy can teach us of political significance. The following essay aims to explain Strauss's view of the political function of philosophy in light of his distinction between classic and modern utopianism and what he calls in On Tyranny "philosophic politics."     

William A. Hammond, the dynamograph, and bogus neurologic testimony in old New York

April 25, 1870, court of General Sessions, New York City, Doctor William A. Hammond, neurologist and former Surgeon General of the United States Army, testified at the trial of his patient Daniel McFarland. McFarland had fatally wounded famous journalist Albert Richardson in November of 1869. Dr. Hammond said McFarland suffered from temporary insanity due to cerebral congestion from over use of the brain. Hammond told the jury he had, "devoted the last five years of his professional life exclusively to the study of the mind", and opined that the evidence of cerebral congestion was profound: McFarland's head was hot, and his carotid throbbed. The proof came from the test with the dynamograph machine: McFarland could not keep a pencil still to trace a straight line in the center of a moving piece of paper. The dynamograph, Dr. Hammond assured the jury, measured the power of a man over his will and thus provided "full and decided evidence" there can be no doubt that McFarland "could not control his will". What were the motivations behind the testimony of this famous expert witness? Did bogus neurologic testimony exist in old New York over a century before our time?     

Establishing a Liberal Political Order Through a Constitution: The Papua New Guinea Experience

The experience with the independent constitution of Papua New Guinea is examined in this article to argue that, while constitutions are able to set up institutions and define their jurisdiction, they are less effective in establishing values and norms. Constitutions establish broad frameworks for politics but are rarely successful in determining the dynamics of politics or the conduct of parties, which depend principally on social and economic circumstances. The parliamentary system in PNG has been influenced more by traditional notions of clan leadership and reciprocity than by any Westminster convention. In PNG, the courts and other institutions for discipline and control of administration have been more effective than in many other developing countries, principally due to the weakness of the state-political system. Nevertheless, there remains considerable tension between the Rule of Law and democracy as it has developed in PNG.     

Classical and Liberal Republicanisms and the New Consumer Culture

United States archaeologists working on the East Coast have recognized a massive discard of consumable goods, such as ceramics and glass, in archaeological contexts that date to the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Explanations for this phenomenon have varied from "changing households" to "style consciousness" to the "Americanization of the U.S. population." I examine the acquisition and eventual discard of consumer goods from several working-class households found at a former industrial armory town, Harpers Ferry. The town is about 60 mi from several coastal port towns and the domestic assemblages display a pattern similar to that of the East Coast sites, although there is a lag of about a decade. While economic models are often used by archaeologists to explain human behavior, cultural patterns are more complex and a variety of phenomena needs to be examined. The growth of consumerism and the eventual massive discard of goods in Harpers Ferry may also be explained by the fall of classical republicanism and the rise of liberal republicanism and romantic ideals in the United States.     

Continuous campaigning and electoral outcomes: The Liberal Democrats in Bath

From the 1950s onwards, David Butler and a number of co-authors of the Nuffield studies of British General Elections stressed the perceived futility of local campaigns, dismissing them as ritual, irrelevant exercises. During the 1990s, a new orthodoxy emerged. Using their own surrogate measure of campaigning, three groups of scholars found that the more intense a party's campaign in a constituency, relative to its opponents', the better its performance there. The significance of campaigning appears to vary across the country's three main political parties; however, it seems to be particularly important to the success of the Liberal Democrats. These findings are entirely consistent with arguments regarding the role and efficacy of local campaigning, but there remains a need for more direct evidence. If the traditionalists are correct, then local campaigning will have no impact on either turnout or the electoral performance of the party involved. If the ‘revisionists’ are correct, then where a party campaigns intensively it should be better able to identify and mobilise its core supporters, ensure that they turn out to vote, and thus improve its performance relative to its opponents. To evaluate these two arguments require data on where and how a party campaigns intensively, at local scales which can then be linked to electoral turnout data for those small areas. Such an evaluation is reported in this paper, using a case study of one ward in the City of Bath at the 1999 local government elections there.     

说唱类非物质文化遗产的保护与传承——以云南少数民族说唱艺术为例

非物质文化遗产的保护与传承日益得到全世界的广泛关注,除了整体性的原则和措施,还应针对不同类型的非物质文化遗产自身的特点探讨其传承和保护问题。说唱艺术是非物质文化遗产中的重要组成部分,以云南为例,当地少数民族说唱艺术可划分为不同类型,其保护与传承也有不同的切入点和侧重点：仪式型说唱艺术．应关注其社会文化环境的主导性;生活型说唱艺术,应强调传承人的关键作用;表演型说唱艺术,应以观众为核心来考虑其传承和保护问题。