I’ve been watching interviews with Victor David Hanson, the author of a historical study I much admire: A War Like No Other (2005) about the Peloponnesian war.  

Hanson is the author of several other studies of military conflict, ancient Greece, and one––Why the West Has Won––in which he argued that the dominance of Western civilization, beginning with the ancient Greeks, results from certain fundamental aspects of Western culture, such as consensual government, a tradition of self-critique, secular rationalism, religious tolerance, individual freedom, free expression, free markets, and individualism. See  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Davis_Hanson

I agree.  Those are characteristics of the sunny side of Western Culture, but there’s also a dark side that includes ruthless subjugation, dominance, cruelty, and a tribal ethos that has no place for empathy.  We’ve not been all good.

Nevertheless,  I much appreciate and admire Victor David Hanson––none of us are perfect––not only for his magisterial scholarship and writing but for his restrained and articulate championship of the conservative perspective.

And while I admire him and would love to chat with him–not debate to win points, but to learn––I disagree with most of his view of life.  With that in mind,  I recommend an interview he participated in.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEXL5USuDGI

We must encourage conversations like that.  They are the fuel of democracy.  And let’s choose the best people we can find––like Hanson––to talk with.

He has a new book––The Case for Trump––in which he boosts Trump while seeing all the negativity in the man, but he makes the case that Trump intuitively knows how to connect with people who feel scorned or left out, and that leads to a kind of conservative renaissance. 

I haven’t read the book, only read reviews, and listened to Hanson talk about it.  I think his analysis of what makes Trump a winner, makes sense.

But it does little to justify the cruel––children in cages––self-dealing, apathetic––vs empathic––personality that is Trump. 

Hanson seems like a natural-born conservative––which we need––and like many conservatives of his age, he abhors the unleashed liberal forces that since WWWII––in my opinion––have gone too far.  Those forces made deep cultural changes that are intolerable from the traditional White Christian perspective and ethos.  His opposition makes sense.

But his support of Trump for re-election is a mistake and seems to be the conversation we are now having in the months before November 3d.

I have a small stake in this game. Trump and I over-lapped each other at the University of Pennsylvania in the mid-sixties. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the Wharton School of Business in ’68, and I earned a PhD from the School of Graduate Arts and Sciences in ’65.  We never met.

But, as an alum, I find it interesting that while Trump talks up Penn and its much respected school of business, Penn never mentions Trump although he is Penn’s first alumnus to become President.

Penn doesn’t talk Trump.  Penn has never honored him and the reasons are murky because Penn maintains silence about Trump that is telling.   You can get the story from  https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/09/14/donald-trump-at-wharton-university-of-pennsylvania/

As much as I admire Victor David Hanson for his scholarship and thoughtful writing, I find it hard to justify his support for a man of obvious flaws to lead this country for another four years.