Introducing this Q&A, I say,
… our guest today is Cass Sunstein, the law professor, the legal thinker, the writer. For many years, he taught at the University of Chicago, and for many years since, he has taught at Harvard. He has written a profusion of books, to go with countless articles—though maybe someone has counted them.
His latest books, I believe, are On Liberalism: In Defense of Freedom and Separation of Powers: How to Preserve Liberty in Troubled Times.
Professor Sunstein is also a Substacker. His Substack is called, straightforwardly enough, “Cass’s Substack.” Truth in advertising. It is delightful and nutritious, time after time.
Toward the top of our program, we spend some time on liberalism—beginning with what it is, what we mean by it. In his book on liberalism, Sunstein isn’t talking about the policy preferences of George McGovern or Barack Obama. He’s talking about the liberalism of the American founding, a liberalism that encompasses Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, et al.
The “holy trinity” of liberalism, says Sunstein, is “the rule of law, pluralism, and freedom.”
Hey, what’s “the rule of law”? Sunstein gives a very clear explication of that as well.
As for the separation of powers—how’s that going in these United States? Sunstein points out something interesting: Congressmen “have been more protective of their own party’s president than of their own institution.” And this is something the Framers “didn’t anticipate.”
In 2020, David French published a book called “Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.” Let me quote from my review of it:
French is doing his best to make an academic paper famous. He has cited it in his speeches for years, and he devotes a chapter to it in his book. He says that the paper does no less than “explain America.” If there is one point in the book to understand, he says, it is the point of the paper.
What is this blockbuster piece of writing? Published in 1999, it’s “The Law of Group Polarization,” by Cass Sunstein … And what is its point? French boils it down to these simple words: “When people of like mind gather, they tend to become more extreme.”
This extremism can lead to nasty words on social media, sure. It can also lead to a lot more.
In our Q&A, Professor Sunstein expounds.
His sport is squash, and he has a reputation for it. I ask, “Are you a professional or a top amateur?” He will allow the following and no more: “Well, I’d say an avid squash player. I’ve played in professional tournaments but haven’t done particularly well in them, so I consider myself an enthusiast and not incompetent.”
At the end of our conversation, we say a quick goodbye—because he is “due on the court,” as he says.
I have written many times about Robert Conquest, the historian and poet (and a friend of mine, I’m lucky to say). I once asked him (something like), “What are you?” In other words, “How would you describe yourself politically?”
In the course of his answer, he brought up Orwell: who spoke of “law and liberty.” The “law-and-liberty lands.” Bob said, “I’m for a law-and-liberty culture.”
So, indeed, is Cass Sunstein, who is a superb interlocutor, a superb teacher. You will see and hear.
