Debating Democracy's Discontent

Abstract

In Democracy’s Discontent, Michael Sandel contrasts the civic republican approach to American politics with that of liberal neutrality and shows how the two views have played out over the course of US history. Sandel argues that liberal neutrality is overwhelmingly dominant today, and he urges a return to a more Aristotelian, republican politics; both positions are controverted here. Under republicanism, government, acting on the premise that self-government is intrinsically good, would take on the challenge of inculcating the virtues of character necessary for effective citizenship. Sandel is not completely clear as to just what America’s lost republican ideals are and precisely what policies his republicanism would justify that liberalism cannot; he fails to acknowledge what both he and his critics should reject as the dark sides of republicanism: right-wing extremism and the tendency toward aristocracy. Republicanism, as well as liberalism, has special dangers for women, though heterosexual women might benefit from a republican discourse on homosexual marriage. The traditional civic virtues may not be those most appropriate to the contemporary United States; liberalism may be able to justify the promotion of virtues appropriate to our times, and a new civic pluralism may be more desirable than a more traditional republicanism. Many Americans are encumbered with traditional group identities that do not sit well with Sandel’s democratic, progressive, redistributivist republicanism; religion can promote virtue and progress, but it can also conflict with republican citizenship. Whether strong beliefs and commitments are valuable is subject to debate; they can produce culture wars, and some way must be found of responding to Americans who are unwilling to yield cherished values in the face of procedural rules. The emotional void republicanism is offered to fill, as well as the goals it is offered to pursue, proceed in part from the behavior of corporations and the desire of middle-class individuals to control them. Americans, Michael Sandel among them, are encumbered with individualism.

Data on Specific Polymers

“…Also, smaller chains are formed from the photolysis of unsaturations formed by internal-cyclization reactions. 47 Figure 14.13 shows that the flexural strength of acrylic plates decreases with the time of exposure. But other data show that more extensive changes occur on the surfaces.…”

From the urban to the civic: the moral possibilities of the city

“…In the civic tradition, moral self-development, rather than the pursuit of wealth or the meeting of material needs, is the paramount purpose of the city, and hence the importance of natural surroundings have more to do with affective ties between the citizen and the community than with economic production and distribution. 21,28 Republican theorists have understood the link between love of country (patriotism) and attachment to physical landscape and sense of place. Traditional republican theory-from Cato and Cicero through Machiavelli to Harrington and Rousseauhas often tried to grasp the meaning of political life through an emphasis on martial and military metaphors; with that rhetoric has come a strong sense of place and territoriality.…”