Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Quick and Easy Sign Up!

It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.

Sign Up Browse

Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

  • Download on iOS
  • Download on Android
  • Download on iOS

Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis

James Davison Hunter
4.41/5 (63 ratings)
Read Now Download Now
The long-developing cultural divisions beneath our present political crisis
 
Liberal democracy in America has always contained contradictions—most notably, a noble but abstract commitment to freedom, justice, and equality that, tragically, has seldom been realized in practice. While these contradictions have caused dissent and even violence, there has always been an underlying and evolving solidarity drawn from the cultural resources of America’s “hybrid Enlightenment.”
 
James Davison Hunter, who introduced the concept of “culture wars” thirty years ago, tells us in this new book that the historic sources of national solidarity have largely dissolved. While a deepening political polarization is the most obvious sign of this, the true problem is not polarization per se but the absence of cultural resources to work through what divides us. All political regimes require some level of consensus. If it cannot be generated organically, it will be imposed coercively.
 
Can America’s political crisis be fixed? Can an Enlightenment-era institution—liberal democracy—survive and thrive in a post-Enlightenment world? If, for some, salvaging the older sources of national solidarity is neither possible sociologically, nor desirable politically or ethically, what cultural resources will fund liberal democracy going forward?
Format:
Pages:
pages
Publication:
Publisher:
Edition:
Language:
ISBN10:
0300274378
ISBN13:
9780300274370
kindle Asin:
B0CW17D3N3

Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis

James Davison Hunter
4.41/5 (63 ratings)
Read Download
The long-developing cultural divisions beneath our present political crisis
 
Liberal democracy in America has always contained contradictions—most notably, a noble but abstract commitment to freedom, justice, and equality that, tragically, has seldom been realized in practice. While these contradictions have caused dissent and even violence, there has always been an underlying and evolving solidarity drawn from the cultural resources of America’s “hybrid Enlightenment.”
 
James Davison Hunter, who introduced the concept of “culture wars” thirty years ago, tells us in this new book that the historic sources of national solidarity have largely dissolved. While a deepening political polarization is the most obvious sign of this, the true problem is not polarization per se but the absence of cultural resources to work through what divides us. All political regimes require some level of consensus. If it cannot be generated organically, it will be imposed coercively.
 
Can America’s political crisis be fixed? Can an Enlightenment-era institution—liberal democracy—survive and thrive in a post-Enlightenment world? If, for some, salvaging the older sources of national solidarity is neither possible sociologically, nor desirable politically or ethically, what cultural resources will fund liberal democracy going forward?
Format:
Pages:
pages
Publication:
Publisher:
Edition:
Language:
ISBN10:
0300274378
ISBN13:
9780300274370
kindle Asin:
B0CW17D3N3

More Books

Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious

Ross Douthat

What It Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church

Gavin Ortlund

Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians

Tara Isabella Burton

The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism

Tim Alberta

King: A Life

Jonathan Eig

Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West

Andrew Wilson

Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning

Peter Beinart

Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture

Aaron M. Renn

Against Worldview: Reimagining Christian Formation as Growth in Wisdom

Simon P. Kennedy

Reading Genesis

Marilynne Robinson

Peace Like a River

Leif Enger

Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age

Rod Dreher