The annual meeting of the
Georgia Political Science Association included a panel devoted to analyzing an
East Georgia State College dean and professor’s recent book. The decision to
organize a panel on a recently scholarly book at a professional meeting
signifies the importance of the work, as well as the timeliness of the issues
contained in the book. The professor, Dr. Lee Cheek, and his newly edited book,
A Theory of Public Opinion, published by Transaction Books at Rutgers
University, an internationally-respected publisher, was featured at the
meeting. Dr. Cheek edited the volume, which surveys the limitations of public
opinion research in today’s politics.
In support of the conference
theme "The Relevancy of Political Science?," this panel examined the
relationship between political theory and the study of public opinion, as well
analyzing the tension between these two “subdisciplines” of political science
in contemporary scholarship. As the basis for the panelists’ comments, the
relevance of the study, A Theory of Public Opinion, was surveyed, which is
perhaps the last major reappraisal of theory’s potential contribution to
understanding public opinion, as well as a novel critique of the academic study
of public opinion.
Panelists traced the emergence
of the ideas and institutions that evolved to give people mastery over their
own destiny through the force of public opinion. The Greek belief in citizen
participation, for example, was described as the ground upon which the idea of
public opinion began and upon which it grew. Cheek’s argument that public
opinion is always an "orderly force," contributing to social and
political life, was critiqued, especially in light of the Election of 2016.
The annual meeting of the
Georgia Political Science Association took place from November 10-12 in
Savannah, Ga. The panel also included Professor Hans E. Schmeisser (Abraham
Baldwin Agricultural College), Professor Daniel Mancill (East Georgia State
College), Dr. Craig Albert (Augusta University), Dr. James LaPlant (Valdosta
State University), and Dr. Brett Larson (East Georgia State College). EGSC’s Dr. Tom Caiazzo and Professor Randy
Carter also provided commentary on the book at the conference.
Dr. Cheek is the Dean of the
Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science and History at East Georgia
State College in Swainsboro, Ga. His many publications include Calhoun and
Popular Rule (2001) and Order and Legitimacy (2004).
Dr. Lee Cheek, Dean of the School of Social Sciences at EGSC, was recently
invited to join the Editorial Advisory Board Studies of Studies in
Burke, a leading interdisciplinary academic journal dedicated to the study,
interpretation, and application of the life and thought of Edmund Burke. Its
guiding principle is that the substance of Burke’s political thought should
remain the subject of vigorous discussion and debate, and that an interest in
his thought and in its significance historically is of vital importance to the
academic community.
According to Dr. Ian Crowe, the Executive Editor of
Studies in Burke, the journal attempts “through its activities and
publications, to present the perennial insight and wisdom of Edmund Burke to a
new generation as a salutary guide for action, reform, and renewal.” Crowe
noted that Cheek was asked to join the editorial board as the result of his
“academic accomplishments and scholarly devotion to the study of Burke and 18th
century political thought.”
Before assuming his duties at EGSC, Dr. Cheek
previously served as Dean of the School of Social Sciences at the University of
North Georgia, as Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at Athens State
University in Alabama, and Vice-President for College Advancement and Professor
of Political Science at Brewton-Parker College in Mt. Vernon, Georgia. Dr.
Cheek taught at Brewton-Parker College from 1997-2000, and from 2005-2009. In
2000, 2006, and 2007, the student body of Brewton-Parker College selected Cheek
as Professor of the Year; and, in 2008, the Jordon Excellence in Teaching
award was bestowed upon him by the College's faculty and administration. From
2000 to 2005, Dr. Cheek served as Associate Professor of Political Science at
Lee University. In 2002, Dr. Cheek was given Lee University’s Excellence in
Scholarship award; and in 2004, he received Lee University's Excellence in
Advising award. In 2008, Western Carolina University presented Dr. Cheek with
the University's Distinguished Alumni Award for Academic and Professional
Achievement.
He has also been a congressional aide and a political
consultant. Dr. Cheek's books include Political Philosophy and Cultural
Renewal (Transaction/Rutgers, 2001, with Kathy B. Cheek); Calhoun and
Popular Rule, published by the University of Missouri Press (2001; paper
edition, 2004); Calhoun: Selected Speeches and Writings (Regnery,
2003); Order and Legitimacy (Transaction/Rutgers, 2004); an edition of
Calhoun's A Disquisition on Government (St. Augustine's, 2007); a
critical edition of W. H. Mallock's The Limits of Pure Democracy
(Transaction/Rutgers, 2007); a monograph on Wesleyan theology (Wesley Studies
Society, 2010); an edition of the classic study, A Theory of Public
Opinion (Transaction/Rutgers, 2013); Patrick-Henry Onslow Debate:
Liberty and Republicanism in American Political Thought (Lexington, 2013);
and, The Founding of the American Republic (Bloomsbury, 2017). He has
also published dozens of scholarly articles in academic publications, and is a
regular commentator on American politics and religion. Dr. Cheek’s current
research includes completing an intellectual biography of Francis Graham Wilson
(I.S.I. Books), and a book on Patrick Henry's constitutionalism and political
theory. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Humanitas, The
Political Science Reviewer, Anamnesis, and The University Bookman,
as a Senior Fellow of the Alexander Hamilton Institute, and as a Fellow of the
Academy of Philosophy and Letters (elected). Dr. Cheek has been a Fellow of the
Wilbur Foundation, the Earhart Foundation, the Center for Judicial Studies, and
the Center for International Media Studies.
EGSC’s Dean of the School of Social Sciences, Dr. Lee Cheek, recently
contributed a book chapter to a volume honoring the life and scholarship of Dr.
Tom Darby, an internationally respected political scientist on the faculty of
Carleton University in Canada. The book was announced at the annual meeting of
the Canadian Political Science Association, and is being published next month by
Fermentation Press, a leading publisher in the social sciences, located in
Quebec, Canada.
Cheek’s chapter in the collection, entitled “Confronting
Nihilism: Towards a Political Theory of the Psalms,” continues a decade of
scholarship by Cheek on the political meaning of the Psalms. According to
Cheek, the “writer [of the Psalms] is a political and spiritual reformer who
argues that life can have meaning. The Psalmist is no longer a messenger of the
divine reality, but an actual participant. Most importantly, the psalmist urges
a spirit of restraint in social and political life.”
Before assuming his
duties at EGSC, Dr. Cheek previously served as Dean of the School of Social
Sciences at the University of North Georgia), as Associate Vice President for
Academic Affairs at Athens State University in Alabama, and Vice-President for
College Advancement and Professor of Political Science at Brewton-Parker
College in Mt. Vernon, Georgia. Dr. Cheek taught at Brewton-Parker College from
1997-2000, and from 2005-2009. In 2000, 2006, and 2007, the student body of
Brewton-Parker College selected Cheek as Professor of the Year; and, in 2008,
the Jordon Excellence in Teaching award was bestowed upon him by the College's
faculty and administration. From 2000 to 2005, Dr. Cheek served as Associate
Professor of Political Science at Lee University. In 2002, Dr. Cheek was given
Lee University’s Excellence in Scholarship award; and in 2004, he received Lee
University's Excellence in Advising award. In 2008, Western Carolina University
presented Dr. Cheek with the University's Distinguished Alumni Award for
Academic and Professional Achievement.
He has also been a congressional
aide and a political consultant. Dr. Cheek's books include Political Philosophy
and Cultural Renewal (Transaction/Rutgers, 2001, with Kathy B. Cheek); Calhoun
and Popular Rule, published by the University of Missouri Press (2001; paper
edition, 2004); Calhoun: Selected Speeches and Writings (Regnery, 2003); Order
and Legitimacy (Transaction/Rutgers, 2004); an edition of Calhoun's A
Disquisition on Government (St. Augustine's, 2007); a critical edition of W. H.
Mallock's The Limits of Pure Democracy (Transaction/Rutgers, 2007); a monograph
on Wesleyan theology (Wesley Studies Society, 2010); an edition of the classic
study, A Theory of Public Opinion (Transaction/Rutgers, 2013); Patrick-Henry
Onslow Debate: Liberty and Republicanism in American Political Thought
(Lexington, 2013); and, The Founding of the American Republic (Bloomsbury,
2017). He has also published dozens of scholarly articles in academic
publications, and is a regular commentator on American politics and religion.
Dr. Cheek’s current research includes completing an intellectual biography of
Francis Graham Wilson (I.S.I. Books), and a book on Patrick Henry's
constitutionalism and political theory. He currently serves on the editorial
boards of Humanitas, The Political Science Reviewer, Anamnesis, and The
University Bookman, as a Senior Fellow of the Alexander Hamilton Institute, and
as a Fellow of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters (elected). Cheek has been a
Fellow of the Wilbur Foundation, the Earhart Foundation, the Center for Judicial
Studies, and the Center for International Media Studies.
Original posting: http://www.ega.edu/articles/detail/dr.-cheek-contributes-to-international-festschrift
No other major figure in 20th century American
social and political life has deserved study more than Russell Amos Kirk
(1918-1994). The existing studies of Kirk are excellent, but the latest effort,
by Professor Brad Birzer, surpasses all previous attempts to
appreciate the magnitude of Kirk’s personal mission and scholarly opus.
Birzer has a command of the primary sources that is truly amazing, and his
archival labors evince the work of a superior scholar and world-class
historian. In other words, a significant advance in scholarly knowledge is upon
us, as well as an advance in evaluating Kirk as a political thinker.[1]
Before I turn to Birzer’s 2015 book (which was
reviewed for Law and Liberty by Mark Pulliam),
let me discuss the previous works, both their virtues and their limitations.
The first sustained study of Kirk to appear
was James E. Person, Jr.’s highly accessible and readable introduction to the
life and works of the Duke of Mecosta, Russell Kirk: A
Critical Biography of a Conservative Mind. Person provides a
coherent and convincing analysis of Kirk’s enduring significance to American
politics and humane learning. Originally published in 1999, and reprinted in
2016, the volume has not been revised, although it remains an excellent
contribution to scholarship. Person’s mission is to introduce a new generation
of readers to “one of the greatest minds this nation has produced during the
twentieth century.”
The book is organized in four sections that
outline Kirk’s achievement. The first section is devoted to interpreting Kirk’s
background, use of historical consciousness, views on education, and
constitutionalism. The second section critiques Kirk’s devotion to the
importance of literature and social criticism. The last two sections survey
Kirk’s economic thought and his lasting importance as a political thinker. The
greatest contribution of this worthwhile volume can be found in the author’s
review of Kirk’s defense of a social order grounded in justice and the
diffusion of political power.
Person’s biography is written for the general
reader, with the intent to elucidate the life and work of Kirk, while avoiding
the arcane scholarly controversies and personages that often dominate such
academic efforts. In a similar vein, John M.
Pafford’s Russell Kirk, a volume in Bloomsbury’s “Major
Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers,” published in 2013, provides a clear and
sympathetic account of Kirk’s continued importance as a political thinker.
As the first purely academic treatise on Kirk
to appear in this revival, my late friend Wesley McDonald’s book on Kirk’s
political thought, Russell Kirk and
the Age of Ideology, initially faces the challenge of his
imposed, direct framework of transference of ideas—from Burke to Babbitt to
Kirk.[2] The influence of Babbitt is significant and should not be minimized,
although the propensity to incorporate the insights of Irving Babbitt when
Kirk’s own critique would be preferable has manifested itself on occasion among
Kirk scholars. Secondly, the role of literature and humane letters was
even more of an overwhelming influence upon Kirk than McDonald initially
suggested.
Contrary to the claim that the role of
literature became important to Kirk in midlife, it was actually central to his
thought as early as the 1940s: witness, for example, Kirk’s early writings on
tragedy (1940), George Gissing (1950), and Sir Walter Scott (1952). To his
great credit, McDonald provides a close reading and explication of the very
extensive corpus of Kirk’s writings. McDonald’s exegesis of Kirk’s Enemies
of the Permanent Things (1969) should encourage interest anew in a work
that outlines many of the most important themes of the Kirkian enterprise.
McDonald brilliantly articulates Kirk’s use of
history as a tool of analysis for his political thought. His depiction of the
errors of Leo Strauss’s view of Burke, especially in Natural Right and History
(1950), as compared to Kirk’s own critique, are groundbreaking as well. Kirk
often noted that Strauss had reconsidered his original assessment of Burke.
According to Kirk, Strauss offered these comments to him while Kirk was a guest
lecturer under the auspices of Strauss at the University of Chicago. Kirk noted
that Strauss moderated his earlier criticism of Burke, suggesting he was more
receptive to Kirk’s own analysis.[3]
The more precise contours of this dialogue and
related issues remain opaque in nature, but continue to receive great attention
from the epigones of Strauss, as well as from Burke scholars.[4] Finally,
McDonald’s discussion of technology in relation to Kirk’s thought is a seminal
contribution to our knowledge of Kirk as a critic of contemporary culture.[5]
Gerald J. Russello’s The Postmodern
Imagination of Russell Kirk (2007) attempts to revise Kirk’s
insights for the 21st century by examining five aspects of his thought: overall
mission; interpretation of history; political life; jurisprudence; and his
criticism of modern life (Kirk’s “counternarrative”). Kirk’s active engagement
with society and politics is detailed, and those who have neglected his
work—viewing Kirk as either an advocate of “nostalgia” or a “static version of
some ideal past”—are introduced to the more engaging potentialities of his
achievement. The vital role of tradition and history for Kirk are explored with
great clarity and sensitivity, along with Kirk’s views of politics and
statesmanship. The treatment of the interconnection between natural law and
American constitutionalism in Kirk’s writings also deserves commendation. Most
importantly, Russello provides a sagacious refutation of the often unreflective
criticisms of Kirk, while affirming the vitality of his thought for
contemporary politics.
As noted, all of these Kirk studies are
outstanding efforts, but Birzer’s encyclopedic critique of the Duke of Mecosta
is a masterwork. When approaching a study of the greatest figure in modern
conservatism, it should be noted that Russell Kirk was a political thinker,
historian, political theorist, journalist, and one who served in many other
capacities. Kirk’s significance is also not limited to the conservative
movement, and while he identified himself as a conservative, he was a man of
humane learning who engaged the major political movements he encountered and
all personages who crossed his path.
In Birzer’s first chapter, entitled “Desert
Humanist,” the reader will discover a very useful survey of Kirk’s early life,
and a critique of Kirk’s emerging plea for the return to traditional concepts
of political order and power. Kirk’s early academic experiences, especially at
Duke University as a graduate student under the influence of his two mentors,
Jay Hubbell (English) and Charles Sydnor (history), are also important to the
narrative Birzer constructs. Unfortunately, Hubbell does not receive mention in
the text, but was a major influence upon the young Kirk in all matters
literary.
Birzer appropriately spends a great deal of
time on Kirk’s developmental defense of the moral basis of social and political
life. Two problems arise, though: the overdependence on Catholicism to explain
Kirk’s emerging worldview; and the unintentional effort to make Kirk more
libertarian than he was, even in his earlier writings. Kirk was essentially a
Christian ecumenist, although he did make his way to Rome. Of Kirk’s four
greatest clerical friends, Canon Basil Alec Smith, Rev. Dr. Lynn Harold Hough,
Canon Bernard Iddings Bell, and Father Martin D’Arcy, S. J., only one was Roman
Catholic—and all four were major advocates of ecumenism, properly
understood—Smith as a man of letters and leading Anglican clergyman, Hough as
the Dean of Drew Divinity School, Bell as a leading cleric and President of
what is now Bard College, and D’Arcy as an internationally respected
intellectual.[6] Additionally, Kirk’s view of natural law is closer to the
classical, consensual Christian tradition than other schools of interpretation.
Perhaps of greatest enduring importance to
scholarship is Birzer’s very convincing and accurate depiction Kirk’s abiding
humanism and the centrality of community to Kirk’s thought. Kirk believed that
humankind’s primary obligation lies in his or her community.
Self-discipline and love of neighbor began with the individual, and spread to
the community, and then to society as a whole. In other words, Kirk’s concept
of community serves to define the limitations of society and politics for on
one hand, while on the other it presupposes and defends the necessity of a
properly constituted community for securing the moral and ethical results
concomitant to society’s perpetuation.
With Birzer’s Russell Kirk, the
academic community has the definitive assessment of Kirk as a social,
historical, and political thinker. The work also encourages a much-needed
reaffirmation of the vitality of the conservative intellectual tradition. With
great clarity and erudition, this new study allows readers to appreciate Kirk
as a defender of community and genuine diversity.
[1] Another exception to the inadequacy of
thoughtful and scholarly engaged recent scholarship on Kirk is James
McClellan’s “Russell Kirk’s Anglo-American Conservatism,” in History of
American Political Thought, edited by Bryan-Paul Frost and Jeffrey Sikkenga
(Lexington Books, 2003).
[3] Russell Kirk, Edmund Burke: A Genius
Reconsidered (Sherwood Sugden and Company, 1988), p. 185.
[4] See Bradley J. Birzer, Russell Kirk:
American Conservative (University Press of Kentucky, 2015), p. 190.
[5] Consider Kirk’s “Humane Learning in the
Age of the Computer,” in Wise Men (republished in the posthumously
published collection of essays, Redeeming the Time {1996}). Kirk’s
response to the critical reviews of Wise Men may provide some additional
commentary as well.
[6] Birzer neglects to integrate Father D’Arcy
into his larger Kirkian narrative, but he is appreciative of his contribution
to scholarship and Catholic social and political life. See Bradley J.
Birzer, “Order”: The Brief and Extraordinary Life of a Catholic
Movement,” Catholic World
Report, September 13, 2015.
H. Lee Cheek, Jr., is
Dean of the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science and Religion at
East Georgia State College, and a Senior Fellow of the Alexander Hamilton
Institute. Dr. Cheek's latest book is Patrick Henry-Onslow: Liberty and Republicanism
in American Political Thought (Lexington Books, 2013).
-
See more at:
http://www.libertylawsite.org/2016/03/29/a-kirkian-renaissance/#sthash.QtFIkjTh.dpuf
EGSC’s Lee Cheek, Dean of the School of Social Sciences, has edited one of
the major works on American politics, John C. Calhoun’s A Disquisition on
Government. Cheek’s edited book is the most widely adopted version of the
text among colleges and universities in America today, and a second edition of
the book will appear next month.
According Cheek’s publisher, Bruce
Fingerhut, President of St. Augustine’s Press, “this volume provides the most
economical and textually accurate version of Calhoun’s Disquisition available
today. As a treatise, the Disquisition is one of the greatest and most enduring
works of American political thought, and a text of seminal importance to all
students of American politics, history, philosophy, and law.”
In the
Disquisition, Calhoun believed he had laid a “solid foundation for political
science” through revitalizing popular rule. To complete his theoretical and
practical mission, Calhoun attempts to explain the best example of the diffusion
of authority and cultivation of liberty: the American Constitution.
Dr.
Cheek’s introduction to the classic edition notes that “Calhoun presents a
theory of politics that is both original and in accord with the mainstream of
the American political tradition. More than any other thinker of his period,
Calhoun sought to explain the enduring qualities of American political thought
in light of the troubled world of the mid-nineteenth century.”
For Cheek,
the book seeks to reconcile the good of popular rule with political ethics, and
this has special importance to many nations in the twenty-first century, despite
the ethnic animosities threatening their destruction.
Originally Posted: January 22,
2016 by Katelyn Moore Last Edited: February 03, 2016 by Katelyn Moore
Commencement address by Dr. H. Lee Cheek, Jr., Dean of the School of Social Sciences, at East Georgia State College, 12 December 2015, Swainsboro, Georgia. The title of the address was "Where Are You Going?"https://youtu.be/jvFidZGb3lY
The annual meeting of the
Georgia Political Science Association included a panel devoted to analyzing an
East Georgia State College dean and professor’s recent book. The decision to
organize a panel on a recently scholarly book at a professional meeting
signifies the importance of the work, as well as the timeliness of the issues
contained in the book. The professor, Dr. Lee Cheek, and his newly edited book,
A Theory of Public Opinion, published by Transaction Books at Rutgers
University, an internationally-respected publisher, was featured at the
meeting. Dr. Cheek edited the volume, which surveys the limitations of public
opinion research in today’s politics.
