Peter Lawler, Public Thinker

Abstract

The late Peter Lawler devoted a great deal of time and effort to public writing—work drawing on his deep knowledge and professional academic expertise but intended to shed light on events of the day for a wide, nonacademic readership. The purpose of that work was highly unusual: Lawler sought not so much to bring the tools of elite academic criticism to bear on the public situation as to bring the common sense of American culture (albeit refined and elevated through a learned Christian sensibility) to bear on the thought and behavior of American elites. If Lawler could be called a public intellectual, it is because he was an intellectual thinking on behalf of the public, and in ways that take seriously both the enormous benefits and the fundamentally tragic character of modern life. There is great value in such public writing, and Lawler offered an exceptional example of the kinds of virtues it involves.