Democracys discontent: America in search of a public philosophy

ISBN 13: 9780674197459

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Democracy’s Discontent by Michael J. Sandel

This is likely to be the case even among liberals themselves. Indeed, one sign of internal dissatisfaction is the rise in some liberal circles of a movement, communitarianism, which attempts to harness positions usually regarded as conservative, especially in the areas of personal and civic virtue, to the cart of a political philosophy that has relentlessly subordinated considerations of the common good to the sovereign liberty of rights-bearing individuals.

Sandel, who teaches political science at Harvard, has given us one of the most accessible and thoughtful explorations of the communitarian alternative yet to appear. Long a critic of rights-based liberalism, Sandel here examines virtually the entire sweep of American history, searching assiduously for the wrong choices and missed opportunities that have led us into our present discontent.

Anita L. Allen and Milton C. Regan

The result is a work of impressive scope and ambition, and one which has already won praise from readers across the political spectrum. Like other communitarians, Sandel looks to a revitalized conception of citizenship as a starting place for a better public philosophy. But he differs from them in turning for inspiration to the republican political theory that greatly influenced the generation of the American Founders. But in this respect his book falls disappointingly short.

Indeed, there is nothing here that most standard-issue liberals would not enthusiastically endorse: community-development corporations in the inner cities; anti-Wal-Mart crusades in the suburbs; new planned towns like Seaside, Florida; the schemes for social and economic organizing touted by the Industrial Areas Foundation IAF , founded by the radical activist Saul Alinsky. This is pretty familiar, near-beer stuff—unlikely, if implemented, to make much of a difference in addressing the underlying problem Sandel has identified.

Nor does he go so far as to endorse recent Republican efforts in the areas of renewed federalism and decentralization, even though these certainly represent the most obvious, concrete, and feasible direction to be taken from his argument. In this, Sandel would seem to be the quintessential New Democrat: willing to lament the ill effects of liberalism, capable of formulating problems in fresh, uncanonical ways, but unable or unwilling seriously to entertain uncanonical solutions.

How much of the republican idea can, in fact, be salvaged for use today? Part of the attraction of republicanism for communitarians lies in the fact that it seems to provide a purely social and secular way of reimagining a more cohesive community, one that does not require an explicit moral and religious consensus. Like many who are alarmed about the culture wars of contemporary America, Sandel wants to find a way to heal some of the polarization in our society, without imposing any ideological conformity on the participants.

A laudable goal; but it is hard to see how the all-consuming demands of the republican idea can be reconciled with a high degree of moral and religious pluralism—or, for that matter, with mass democracy on a national scale. Sandel is right to assert, for example, that the proscription of religious speech from the public square has actually served to alienate and harden the perspectives of many religious conservatives, while impoverishing life by removing the consideration of ultimate ends from public discussion. But it does not follow that the profound differences we see today can be addressed merely by letting everyone have a turn at the podium.

On issues like abortion, euthanasia, and sexual ethics, we are, as a nation, very far apart, and perhaps becoming more so all the time. Communitarians sometimes seem to think that, if only we could recreate the appropriate conditions for fully functioning communities, healthy deliberation and working agreement would follow.

But that is at best only partly true. To a considerable extent, in order to have a community we have to agree first. This may seem to lead us back to the quintessentially liberal notion of the social contract, by means of which a political body is constituted through mutual consent. But it is not just Puritan ideals that Sandel ignores.

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He seems to have excluded the entire tradition of Protestant Christianity from his analysis of American history. To be sure, there is a lot wrong with the Protestant tradition; it has always struggled with its antinomian and individualistic tendencies, and in our time those tendencies have nearly destroyed it. Remaining Causes of Indian Discontent. A History of Philosophy in America, The Philosophy of Public Health.

A history of philosophy in America, Philosophy and Public Policy. Public Administration in America , Tenth Edition. Government and Public Health in America. In Search of Eden.

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