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Obama, John Rawls, and a Defense of the Unreasonable

By Nonpartisan, Section Diaries
Posted on Fri Jun 12, 2009 at 11:32:44 PM EST
Tags: Barack Obama, John Rawls (all tags)
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Cross-posted from ProgressiveHistorians

If you want to understand President Obama's soul, read his books.  But if you want to understand his beliefs, read John Rawls.  The Harvard academic, who died in 2002, was the most important philosopher of liberalism in the twentieth century, mostly because, in so many ways, Rawls' ideas describe the world we live in.  That has never been more true than today, when our President has, consciously or unconsciously, exalted Rawlsian ideas to the position of the greatest possible good.

Care to hear more about this explanatory model that is so central to Obama's thought, whether he acknowledges the influence or not?  Read on.

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