ABSTRACT
This study opened with the observation that political philosophy tends to flourish in moments of crisis and decay. When all goes well with their world, men do not question the presuppositions of their own historical communities. Ques tioning follows on the experience of doubt or the premoni tion of impending disaster. Political philosophy is flourish ing today in the United States. And political philosophy flourishes because the nation is passing through a grave crisis of self-identity and self-recognition. The absentminded loss of our victory in World War I I and the subsequent failure to establish a "Pax Americana" (which would have lent sub stance to our Roman and Republican pretensions); the frenzy of masochism that surrendered half the world to Communist slavery; the partial defeat of our arms in Korea; the total defeat of our arms in Vietnam; the burning of our universities and cities in the sixth decade of the century; the abdication of Cambodia and Angola; the neoisolationism of the American left and the establishment; the decay of our military strength, a decay come upon consciously and delib erately because of our preference for an easy and even opu lent life; our hypocrisy before political scandal at home and our apathy before political tyranny abroad-all of these fac tors and others have compounded a fracturing of the Ameri can soul. As with all sick men, we now worry about our health. Political philosophy is rarely curative but, when theoretically sound, is diagnostic.
