Beginning at the beginning

I decided to launch this column out of a sense of gratitude.

Earlier this month, John Fleming, brilliant scholar, devoted mentor, inspiring teacher, beloved husband and father and a long-time friend of my own father's, passed away. His classes at Princeton in English and comparative literature were legendary, particularly his course on Chaucer. His books--from The Dark Side of the Enlightenment to The Anti-Communist Manifestos to An Introduction to the Franciscan Literature of the Middle Ages--were uniformly tours de force. Conversations with John were intimidatingly erudite and yet somehow also hilarious. Laughter was an unavoidable consequence of spending time with John.

But I suspect that the way that most people became acquainted with John's wit and wisdom was through his weekly column at the campus newspaper, the Daily Princetonian. Titled "Gladly Lerne, Gladly Teche," it was a must-read. He tackled everything from the Crusades to the Campus Center, from book burning to basketball. As you might imagine, it sometimes got him into trouble. But appropriately, the title of the column came from a passage in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, where Chaucer is describing the clerk (what would today be called a student or a scholar). The passage concludes, "And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche."

John was a true scholar, someone who gladly learned and gladly taught all his life. I am grateful to have known him, and I will miss him.

It is in that spirit--of the joyful pursuit of knowledge together–that I have created this column. Each week, I plan to explore fundamental questions in law, politics and global affairs. What is justice? Where did our ideas about it come from? How has it evolved over time? And how can we preserve it?

I like to begin at the beginning, and so next week, I'll be back with a discussion of Socrates and The Iliad, and what they have to tell us about justice and goodness.

But for now, do yourself a favor and go read some of John Fleming's work. It will bring a smile to your face.