Summary
Title: The Last, Best Hope: a Democracy Reader
Author: edited by Stephen John Goodlad
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
ISBN: 0787956813
Pro:
• Wide ranger of perspectives
• Many notable authors contribue essays
• Explains important, basic concepts which are often ignored
Con:
• None
Description:
• Explains why democracy is important and how it should be preserved
• Explains many of the things which can undermine democracy in our society
• Offers solutions and perspectives from many different people
Book Review
Why are these issues critical? Because democracy does not exist on its own and is not a self-perpetuating system. Every political system requires that people acknowledge it has having legitimate authority, otherwise it cannot govern:
- ”But democracies are different because they cannot rely upon passive or implicit acceptance. Instead, they require active participation and the active exercise of power because authority resides in the people themselves, not in some “other” out there. The people have the responsibility because they are supposed to have the power — when they fail in the exercise of their responsibility, democracy cannot easily survive.”
This book is a companion volume to Developing Democratic Character. Whereas that book focuses on the question of how to educate young people with democratic values, the current book takes a wider look at democracy in society. Authors include Benjamin Barber, Wendell Berry, Noam Chomsky, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Amy Gutman, Robert Kaplan, Neil Postman, Robert Putnam, and Howard Zinn; taken together, they provide a good overview of contemporary thought on democracy.
One essay by Robert D. Putnam is particularly good and deserves mention. Putnam has written the book Bowling Alone which covers similar issues as his essay, but whereas the book has more details, this serves as a good introduction to his arguments. His basic position is that the existence of a functioning democracy depends upon the existence of “social capital,” which is a term used to describe the “investment” people have with each other.
These investments are developed over time through social relationships and interactions, for example in civic groups and voluntary organizations. Unfortunately, when people stop participating in such groups, the amount of investment drops and apathy develops:
- ”Compared with earlier generations, we are less engaged with one another outside the marketplace and thus less prepared to cooperate for shared goals. This decline in social capital helps explain the economic and political troubles of our own democracy.”
When our social interactions with other people become largely confined to the context of economic utility, how strong is the future of a democratic society?
