Beyond Practical Virtue: A Defense of Liberal Democracy Through LiteratureUniversity of Missouri Press, 2007 - 179 pages Why hasn't democracy been embraced worldwide as the best form of government? Aesthetic critics of democracy such as Carlyle and Nietzsche have argued that modern democracy, by removing the hierarchical institutions that once elevated society's character, turns citizens into bland, mediocre souls. Joel A. Johnson now offers a rebuttal to these critics, drawing surprising inspiration from American literary classics. Addressing the question from a new perspective, Johnson takes a fresh look at the worth of liberal democracy in these uncertain times and tackles head-on the thorny question of cultural development. Examining the novels of James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain, and William Dean Howells, he shows that through their fiction we can gain a better appreciation of the rich detail of everyday life, making the debate relevant to contemporary discussions of liberal democracy. Johnson focuses on an issue that liberals have inadequately addressed: whether people tend to develop fully as individuals under liberal democracy when such a regime does little formally to encourage their development. He argues that, though the liberal fear of state-guided culture is well founded, it should not prevent us from evaluating liberalism's effect on individual flourishing. By extending the debate over the worthiness of liberal democracy to include democracy's effect on individual development, he contends that the democratic experience is much fuller than the aristocratic one and thus expands the faculties of its citizens. Critics of American democracy such as John Rawls have sought to transform it into a social or egalitarian democracy in the European style. Johnson shows that neither the debate between Rawls and his communitarian critics nor the ongoing discussion of the globalization of American values adequately addresses the fundamental critique of democratic culture advanced by the aesthetic critics. Johnson's cogent analysis reaches out to those readers who are ready for a more comprehensive evaluation of liberal democracy, offering new insight into the relationship between the state and the individual while blazing new trails in the intersection of politics and literature. |
Contents
| 1 | |
1 The Aesthetic Critique of Democratic Liberty | 33 |
2 Democratic Liberation | 55 |
3 The Democratic Struggle and Individual Development | 85 |
4 Individual Development and the Public Sphere | 114 |
Conclusion | 146 |
Bibliography | 165 |
Index | 173 |
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abilities achieve action aesthetic critique American argues argument aristocratic Arnold arrogant Arthur become Billy Kirby Camelot Carlyle character Chingachgook citizens civic civilization concern Cooper Corey critics culture D. H. Lawrence defend democ democracy’s democratic democratic institutions democratic interaction democratic liberty democratic public sphere discussion dividual Dryfoos Dryfoos’s effects elevating Eliot Emerson Emersonian environment equal liberty example fact freedom Friedrich Nietzsche Hank Hank’s hierarchy Howells Huck Huckleberry Finn human ideal individual development insight James Fenimore Cooper Jason justice Kant leisure liberal democracy Lindau literature lives Mark Twain material Matthew Arnold ment modern moral Natty Natty Bumppo Natty’s nature Nietzsche norms novelists novels one’s outlook Over-Soul people’s person political realize regime relationship sense Silas Lapham Silas’s social society soul struggle for autonomy T. S. Eliot tend theory Thoreau tion Tocqueville Transcendentalists Traveler from Altruria Twain University Press values Whitebrook Yeats York
Popular passages
Page 27 - What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect, but the soul, whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his action, would make our knees bend.
Page 83 - But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can't stand it. I been there before.
Page 16 - We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous men are not free men.
Page 74 - And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the nighttime, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we afloating along, talking and singing and laughing.
Page 28 - In the midst of a gentle rain, while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendlyness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them since.
Page 41 - No government by a democracy or a numerous aristocracy, either in its political acts or in the opinions, qualities, and tone of mind which it fosters, ever did or could rise above mediocrity, except in so far as the sovereign Many have let themselves be guided (which in their best times they have always done) by the counsels and influence of a more highly gifted and instructed One or Few.
Page 90 - Yet there was something very engaging about these great simplehearted creatures, something attractive and lovable. There did not seem to be brains enough in the entire nursery, so to speak, to bait a fish-hook with ; but you didn't seem to mind that, after a little, because you soon saw that brains were not needed in a society like that, and, indeed would have marred it, hindered it, spoiled its symmetry — perhaps rendered its existence impossible.
Page 12 - Almighty God hath created the mind free ; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do...
Page 59 - It reminded me of a time thirteen centuries away, when the " poor whites " of our South who were always despised and frequently insulted by the slave-lords around them, and who owed * their base condition simply to the presence of slavery in their midst, were yet pusillanimously ready to side with the...