I have heard America described several times recently as “the first nation built on an idea,” or words to that effect. It made me uncomfortable, somehow coming across as sinister blather. But I didn’t stop to figure out why.

Yet there are few questions – perhaps none at all – more important to our common life than just what it is we do “have in common.” In that form, the question has been roiling me for more than a decade. Now my thinking has been jump-started  Continue reading “Proposition or Place?” →