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Quotes
- In a classic article written a decade ago, George Kateb argues for the moral distinctiveness and moral superiority of representative democracy: political authority is chastened, diversity acknowledged, privacy respected, individuality encouraged, coercion minimized. By contrast, Kateb contends, the moral costs of direct democracy are prohibitive: the overriding of differences in the name of "community"; the effacement of boundaries and separations, with everything subjected to the publicly political imperative; the relentless disparagement of nonpublic life. The core of direct democracy, he concludes, is the life of citizenship, "public and continuous and all-absorbing, and laid as an obligation on all, not freely chosen by a random few. But the life of citizenship is procrustean.... The politics of direct democracy and its social conditions and consequences are the death of autonomy."
Kateb's claims should be taken into account by anyone intent upon increasing direct political participation under contemporary circumstances. So should the observations of scholars like Michael Walzer, Jane Mansbridge, and Anne Phillips (in her recent Engendering Democracy), all sympathetic to the participatory ideal but sensitive to its costs. And so, for that matter, should empirical studies of the practical effects of participatory ideals on contemporary party politics....
The idea of politics as more than the mechanical interplay of interests, as the locus of human connection, has a not altogether undistinguished history. It is also the source of a not inconsiderable danger. For political fraternity tends to be most completely realized in the course of shared ventures that bring groups together in opposition to others. Harmony and conflict are twinned. This has led, within the pragmatist tradition itself, to a quest for what William James calls the "moral equivalent of war." But no such equivalent has ever been persuasively articulated. The impulse toward political fraternity can easily yield the suppression of difference and the romanticizing of violence. Politics is less risky and more decent when the search for fraternity is carried out in nonpublic venues. The quest for an emotionally intense community coextensive with the public sphere can only end by jeopardizing democratic institutions and liberties.
William A. Galston, "Salvation through Participation: John Dewey and the Religion of Democracy," Raritan Quarterly Review.
William A. Galston, "Salvation through Participation: John Dewey and the Religion of Democracy," Raritan Quarterly Review.
- Government is essentially organized and institutionalized power.
Hannah Arendt - Money buys access; access buys influence.
Elizabeth Drew - In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Dwight D. Eisenhower - The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.
Thomas Jefferson - If I seem to take part in politics, it is only because politics today encircle us like the coils of a snake from which one cannot get out, no matter how much one tries. I wish to wrestle with the snake.
Mohandas K. Gandhi - With politicians, artful evasion is always preferable to the outright lie.
Molly Ivins - The political problem of mankind is to combine three things: Economic Efficiency, Social Justice, and Individual Liberty.
John Maynard Keynes - The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had. Finally it reaches the opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality.
Martin Luther King, Jr. - Government is or ought to be instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of mal-administration, and whenever any government shall be found inadequate, or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish it in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the weal.
George Mason (Virginia Bill of Rights, 1776) - Those who desire to treat politics and morals apart from one another will never understand either.
Rousseau - The government must be the trustee for the little man because no one else will be. The powerful can usually help themselves--and they frequently do.
Adlai Stevenson - I do not believe the world's wrongs will be resolved by warfare or economic dominance by one nation over another. We must grow into a world community where difference can be celebrated rather than seen as divisive. To progress we need people of stature who will be able to demonstrate compassionate wisdom and political acumen that brings hope to those in despair.
Terry Waite
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Page last modified on September 28, 2006, at 04:14 PM