What They Saw in America
By Thomas Holmes
A small group of professors, doctoral students, and various other members of the Catholic University community gathered in Gibbons Hall to with James Nolan to discuss his new book, “What They Saw in America,” a reflection on what Alexis de Tocqueville, Max Weber, Sayyid Qutb, and G. K. Chesterton noticed when they visited America.
The lecture and Q&A was hosted by the University’s McLean Center for the Study of Culture and Values.
Nolan is a professor of Sociology at Williams College in Massachusetts. His teaching and research specializes in law, culture, and historical sociology. His book follows four different foreign visitors who came to the United States at different times in history. The idea for the book stemmed from an idea that Alexis de Tocqueville came up with that “Only foreigners can make certain truths reach American ears.”
Nolan describes his book as an “exercise in listening to outsiders’ views of America.”
The book walks through four different accounts from Tocqueville, Weber, Qutb, and Chesterton and their individual experiences coming to America. One common theme touched upon in every account of America was the unique role religion played in American lives. Nolan also pointed out the fact that each author noted an issue of sustainability of religion in America and in a Democracy in general.
Much of what was discussed is how each author looked forward to many of the problems in society today. According to Nolan, both Chesterton and Tocqueville said that religion in America was not guaranteed to decline unlike the beliefs of Qutb and Weber. Both Qutb and Weber were both very critical of the religious institutions in America.
Nolan aimed to explain why reflecting on these author’s comments matters for society today. The theme of the lecture series focused on what it means to live a life in a moral way. Nolan believes that by looking at what people have said about America in the past, the people of America are better able to understand how to progress.
The McLean Center holds a roundtable colloquy every Wednesday for the Catholic University community to connect and discuss ideas regarding philosophy and social sciences.
The McLean Center states that its mission is to “identify areas related to values and social life which are in need of research, to bring together the professional competencies in philosophy and related human sciences needed for this research, and to publish the resulting studies,” according to its website.The group aims to cooperate with different cultures from around the world on philosophical issues.
