The Program on Church, State & Society recently hosted a roundtable talk, A Confident Pluralism. The discussion was based on Professor John Inazu's forthcoming book, Confident Pluralism.
Both elements of his title are critical to his argument. According to Inazu, "Confidence without pluralism misses the reality of politics. It suppresses difference, sometimes violently. Pluralism without confidence misses the reality of people. It ignores or trivializes difference, allowing only a shallow coexistence that feigns agreement for the sake of false unity.” What we need, he argues, is a pluralism that “allows genuine difference to coexist without suppressing or minimizing our firmly held convictions,” and which we can embrace “precisely because we are confident in our own convictions and beliefs, and in the groups and institutions that sustain them.”
Inazu is Professor of Law and Political Science at Washington University and author of the book, Liberty's Refuge.
Participants included:
- Richard Garnett, Moderator, Notre Dame Law School
- William Baude, University of Chicago Law School
- Patrick Deneen, University of Notre Dame
- Chad Flanders, Saint Louis University School of Law
- Kristen Deede Johnson, Western Theological Seminary
- Randy Kozel, Notre Dame Law School
- Bryan McGraw, Wheaton College
- Michael Moreland, Villanova University School of Law
- Jeff Pojanowski, Notre Dame Law School
- Steven Smith, University of San Diego School of Law
- Nicholas Wolterstorff, Yale University
- Timothy Zick, William & Mary Law School