Vorbindu-i presedintelui Nixon despre colegul sau de la Harvard, profesorul James Q. Wilson, distinsul sociolog si intelectual public Daniel Patrick Moynihan l-a numit “the smartest man in the United States”. Scrierile profesorului Wilson, carti esentiale si articole aparute in “The Public Interest”, “Commentary” si “The Atlantic”, au influentat decisiv politicile publice legate de asistenta sociala, definirea familiei, a saraciei si a afluentei, si mai ales cele legate de lupta impotriva criminalitatii in marile metropole americane. Viziunea sa a fost imbratisata de Rudolph Giuliani in perioada cand a fost primar al New York-ului. Apropiat de ganditorii neoconservatori, James Q. Wilson a fost un spirit deschis, ostil tabuurilor impuse de ortodoxiile mediatice si de modele academice. Dupa doua decenii de predat la Harvard, James Q. Wilson a fost profesor la Universitatea California din Los Angeles (UCLA) si apoi la Universitatea Pepperdine.
La nivelul conversatiei publice despre valorile care dau masura democratiei americane, profesorul Wilson s-a opus relativismului moral, expresia contemporana a nihilismului, si a sustinut ideea ca exista ceea ce numim absoluturi etice, ca acestea fac parte din identitatea umana, ca omul nu este un subiect etern si infinit deconstruibil, “o inventie recenta” (spre a relua formularea lui Michel Foucault). James Q. Wilson s-a opus anti-umanismului, fie acesta “teoretic” (gen Louis Althusser si urmasii sai, Alain Badiou si Etienne Balibar) ori practic. A deconspirat instrumentalizarile politice ale categoriilor de Bine si de Rau, subordonate de vechii si noii stangisti unor cauze seculare sacralizate. O carte fundamentala precum “The Moral Sense” a reabilitat valori contestate de partizanii relativismului cultural si moral. Iata un citat cat se poate de elocvent: “We do have a core self, not wholly the product of culture, that includes both a desire to advance our own interests and a capacity to judge disinterestedly how those interests ought to be advanced”.
In “Washington Post” un elogios articol despre James Q. Wilson a aparut sub semnatura lui George Will:
Wilson warned that we should be careful about what we think we are, lest we become that. Human nature, he said, is not infinitely plastic; we cannot be socialized to accept anything. We do not recoil from Auschwitz only because our culture has so disposed us. Children, Wilson thought, are intuitive moralists, but instincts founded in nature must be nurtured in families. The fact that much of modern life, from family disintegration to scabrous entertainment, is shocking is evidence for, not against, the moral sense, which is what is shocked. And the highest purpose of politics is to encourage the flourishing of a culture that nurtures rather than weakens the promptings of the moral sense.
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