There are two temptations – at least! – that we often fall into when it comes to looking at our current state of politics.

On the one hand, we may be tempted to look back at some previous period and say, “Our political discourse was really good then; I wish we could go back.” We romanticize the past and ignore the challenge and struggle and oversights that we’ve muddled through to get to the present.

On the other hand, we may be tempted to look at our present state – our institutions, our ideologies, our political systems – and assume we’ve made nothing but progress. Things aren’t perfect, but they’re better than they were, we may say. And as a result, we assume we have nothing to learn from what’s come before.

I think – I hope! – the vast majority of us fall somewhere in between, eager to keep improving our political processes so as to represent and include more and more voices, and also curious about what worked in the past, what we might have to learn from those who have gone before. If that sounds right, then this conversation is for you.

Bill McCormick is a Jesuit and scholar of political science and philosophy. He’s a frequent contributor to America Magazine, and has written a new book called “The Christian Structure of Politics.” In it, Bill takes us way back in time to the political thought of Thomas Aquinas and his work De Regno – which was a letter the saint wrote to a prince. Bill helps us think through what this obscure text written for a very different political system can say about our politics today.