Democracy

Democracy in America is less glorified than glossed over.  It's taken for granted that, threatened or not, democracy is something we have. 

Sometimes democracy is spoken of as something we could lose. And such discussions have increased in both frequency and alarm since the presidential election of 2016. 

Only more rarely is democracy mentioned as something that could be increased or advanced.

Sometimes "democracy" is simply equated with "the United States".  And in many circles the United States is considered a leader in the advancement of democracy.  This was probably true in the 1830s even while US slavery was expanding, and the genocide of indigenous North American peoples was accelerating. 

Today the US may still be at the forefront of the development of democracy.  

But it is not impossible that the near future may witness a sharp retrenchment of democracy in many parts of the world - including the United States. 

Perhaps such a retrenchment will erase the dramatic victories won since the 1960s. Perhaps it will reverse all the democratic advancements of the twentieth century.

Perhaps democracy as an effective set of practices and institutions will simply cease to effectively function in the coming decades. Perhaps nothing like this could happen without concerted and passionate resistance.

Perhaps a majority of Americans will approve, acquiesce, or even fail to notice an atrophy of democracy.  And if they do, perhaps it will be because they came to believe democracy was never anything but a naive fantasy or a cynical scam.  Perhaps they already believe this.

In this curricular activity, the United State plays a key and perhaps central role in an exploration of democracy's development in the Western World. This is appropriate.  But, hopefully American democracy is here set in a broader context that will support a more cold eyed understanding of both its urgency and its fragility.

One of the most insidious and effective ways of inflicting mortal injuries upon democracy is to glamorize or romanticize it.  As an ideal, democracy can certainly be inspiring - especially when long and grueling struggles "end" in victory.  But such victories could also be democracy's tragic flaw, containing the bitter seeds of it's inevitable destruction.

Democracy as an ideal does not always effectively lend its inspiring glamor to its actual practice.  The same can be said for its historical realizations even if those dramatic victories still stir the hearts of all serious citizens.  That's because a living democracy is also a set of practices which cannot always be contained in solemn rituals or energizing celebrations.

The practice of democracy may only rarely be found to be inspiring.  Perhaps in most actual life experience it is merely a set of duties generating tedium, frustration, and perhaps, relief when things go well; heartbreak and disillusionment when they don't. Democracy is people after all.

Humanity has evolved so that most of us endure the tedium, frustrations, and heartbreaks of family life. Most of us can see past the onerous duties of fostering children to find meaning, value, and even transcendence. 

But public life, whether it be civic or sectarian seems something different.  

Or maybe not.

Perhaps the most pivotal challenge of modernity is the growing recognition that humans create our own myths - and it is our myths that animate and energize our communal lives.  And perhaps the ultimate distinction between "conservatism" and "progressivism" is in how we choose to confront this reality.