The crumbling cultural foundations of America's democracy

Gobry’s remark that “democracy did not simply happen” is an understatement. The concept of citizenship, and the concepts of virtue and liberal education that underpin it, rest upon a vast and unfathomably complex cultural structure. Liberal education, for example, cannot take root in a culture which is intolerant of dissent or suspicious of originality. Virtue will never be widespread in a culture that encourages license. There are tensions in the cultural structure, too—the same suspicion of originality that hinders liberal education might backstop virtue by resisting moral “innovation.”

The delicate balances needed here are why democracies are so rare in human history. Those delicate cultural balances are contingent. Events may change them. A successful culture must be able to perpetuate itself in spite of events. And America’s cultural structure isn’t being passed on. A Pew study of millennials last March found that we are less patriotic, less religious, less trusting, less loyal to organized political parties and less likely to be married. As I wrote at the time, “America is currently experiencing a social rupture, one in which old beliefs, old traditions, old ways of life are being abandoned en masse, and in which the communities and institutions associated with the old ways no longer command popular loyalty.” I suggested that this was likely to lead to a growth of the state as cultural sources of social support fade. If Gobry is right that the intellectual foundations of democracy are also fading, that bigger state will raise the stakes of American politics and deepen the divisions in the American polity.