“Ordinary Americans of all backgrounds and convictions recognize that the entire political ecosystem—not only its leadership and its governing institutions, but also its leading ideas and ideals—is failing.”
With this quote, University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter telegraphs his fundamentally gloomy view of the future of the American experiment - a pessimism broadly shared by many Americans of various political stripes.
His new book Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis is an explanation of how we got here, and what it means for our current cultural and political conditions. It is a return to the focus of his early 90s work on cultural conflict in Culture Wars: The Struggle To Control The Family, Art, Education, Law, And Politics In America and Before the Shooting Begins: Searching for Democracy in America’s Culture War.
This is an important book. It’s not a light read, but for those who aren’t afraid to take on a more intellectual work, I highly recommend it.
Like many such works, Hunter’s book tells the history of America seen through a particular lens. In this case, it’s what he calls the “hybrid Enlightenment,” or the shared cultural underpinnings that enabled social and political solidarity in the US.
The hybrid Enlightenment is a combination of multiple elements, principally the English and Scottish strands of the Enlightenment and a millenarian Christianity of both the austere Calvinistic variety and a sort of populist folk one.
This hybrid Enlightenment was flawed, with various incomplete or contradictory elements that needed to be “worked through” (his adaptation of a Freudian term), such as racial injustice. But this working through, along with the evolution of society, caused the hybrid Enlightenment to slowly dissolve over time to the point where it no long provides a basis for solidarity, of which he says:
Solidarity is not just about the will to come together to do the work of democratic politics. It is about the cultural preconditions and the normative sources that make that coming together possible in the first place…Solidarity in this more capacious sense defines a framework of cohesion within which legitimate political debate, discourse, and action take place…The power of solidarity is found in the unspoken, often vague or fuzzy resonances of shared identity, shared affections, shared challenges, and a shared destiny.
After tracing his history, Hunter then provides a deeply depressing overview of our current cultural and political climate, one that raises fully legitimate questions about the future of American democracy due to the loss of the pre-conditions of solidarity.
Read the rest of this piece at Aaron Renn Substack.
Aaron M. Renn is an opinion-leading urban analyst, consultant, speaker and writer on a mission to help America's cities and people thrive and find real success in the 21st century. He focuses on urban, economic development and infrastructure policy in the greater American Midwest. He also regularly contributes to and is cited by national and global media outlets, and his work has appeared in many publications, including the The Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
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Comments on Renn's article
1.AR-"the future of American democracy". I wish authors would be more careful using the term democracy. We have democracy at the State and local level. But at the Federal level we are a representative Republic, a federation of United States, but not a democracy. This is by design and matters because so much of today's focus is on our Federal government.
2.AR-"we no longer have the cultural resources to work through what divides us." Here is a quote of my own, "In a George Will column (Bozeman Daily Chronicle 04/21/22) titled, "Unsettled governance, political loathing, ..." he notes 14 French Constitutions since 1789. Regarding "Liberty, Egalite, Fraternity", Will says "Many of the French are opposed to [Liberty] if it diminishes [Egalite], which makes [Fraternity] elusive." Migration without assimilation makes fraternity elusive as well."
3.AR-"One such factor the bureaucratization (think: managerialism) of essentially every part of our lives." Amen. There is much alarm about the lack of "affordable housing". But the reason is all the bureaucratic planning criteria and government regulations which must be met. A recent development in my area has been approved for 35 single family homes on 20 acres. The documentation submitted for approval amounted to 605 pages. No one flipping burgers will be buying these homes, even with $25000 from Kamala Harris. Pogo said it, "We have met the enemy and he is us". Besides our kids don't need to start life in a median priced home.
4.AR-"It does means not dehumanizing your enemy and recognizing that you actually will be living in the same country with them.”. I recently read a comment to a Robert Reich post in which the author characterized Trump supporters as being not part of "our reality". My response was to say in the near term, "there is ONLY ONE AMERICAN REALITY. And the only way for your reality to become "the reality” is for the Democratic Party to become the ONLY party, A CALL TO INDOCTRINATION, EXILE, OR VIOLENCE [per Rousseau]."
5.AR-"Roe vs. Wade did not settle the abortion debate. Nor did its overturning. Nor will any laws of any type passed today." On this contentious subject, the Supreme Court and Trump are right. Keep the development of abortion regulation at the State level until a better consensus evolves. Besides, if consent occurred between and man and a woman at some point and a child is conceived, why should the man be allowed no say whatsoever in a later decision about abortion?