“Radical Universalism”: Principle and Practice in American Political Thought

Description

“In political terms the question is whether human powers, wills, and authorities should be guarded not just by constitutions, checks and balances, and international treaties – they all belong to the political realm and bend to its principles—but also determined by truth’s external authority.”

—Omri Boehm, Radical Universalism: Beyond Identity

In the year 2026, two hundred and fifty years after the penning of the Declaration of Independence, do Americans still believe in its principles? Some people may still quote  with reverence the lines “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and yet the very ideas expressed in this document are under attack from both the populist right and the intellectual left. While some on the right claim a special place in the polity for “Heritage Americans” and reject equality for all, some on the left see the universal claims of the Declaration as hypocritical, empty principles put forth to protect European men only, allowing others to be exploited. What did the Declaration mean to Americans and why are its principles in doubt now? Must a democracy be based on universal claims? Does the Declaration of Independence defend American democracy in a more fundamental way than the American Constitution does?

Omri Boehm in his 2025 book Radical Universalism: Beyond Identity argues against the dilution of the fundamental principles laid out in 1776. What we need are not ideas that fit our times better, he argues, but radical universalism, the external authority of truth.

This 12-week discussion-based course will begin by considering three defining moments of American Political thought: The signing of the Declaration of Independence, the rededication of the country to the principles of the Declaration by Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War, and the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and ’60s. How was the country shaped by each of these moments? How are we to understand the political compromises that betrayed the principles time and again throughout American history?

In the second half of the course, we will carefully read Boehm’s book and seek to understand his argument for radical universalism. What does he mean by this concept and why does he look to Kant and Maimonides to understand it? Is he right to argue that we must move beyond identity politics and return to some version of a higher authority? Why does he associate that authority with the biblical prophet Abraham?

 Required text: 

• * Radical Universalism: Beyond Identity by Omri Boehm (ISBN: 978-1-68137-985-2; Electronic Book ISBN: 978-1-68137-986-9; New York Review of Books, 2025)

Participants must obtain a copy of the required texts at the bookstore or library of their choice.

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