I’ve read it twice and I think it is. It’s actually kind of a masterpiece. It’s George Will at Washington University in St. Louis, on December 4, 2012. The language, vocabulary, diction, the assumption that the audience knows things and is capable of following a line of argument, even when that argument takes turns or doubles back – all these things are old school, and carry old school’s natural authority. But Will’s subject matter and message couldn’t be more timely, or more relevant to the fix we’re in. So it’s a very modern/not modern piece of work. The Tocqueville quote at the end is like a genius’s description of: today.
Here’s the text.