This piece originally appeared in First Things.
For the last few decades, James Davison Hunter has eloquently chronicled the fracturing of America. When his Culture Wars appeared in 1991, it might have been possible to dismiss as Chicken Little-ism his thesis that America was being riven by two incommensurable worldviews. No more. And since then, as the conflict he identified has escalated to the point of undeniability, Hunter’s succeeding books have continued to circle around a fundamental challenge: that of realizing any vision of the good life in a pluralistic age.
His latest work, Democracy and Solidarity, again explores this theme, this time by investigating the puzzle of e pluribus unum. How has it been possible for Americans to maintain our solidarity and shared commitment to liberal democracy—“among the greatest achievements in human history”—despite deep disagreements? And what explains the erosion of that solidarity today? Hunter believes the answer lies not in partisan politics but in “cultural logics.” His hope is that by exposing how deep our cultural crisis goes, he will reveal how we might end it. In a way, Democracy and Solidarity does indeed accomplish its aim: The book unintentionally makes a strong case for why liberal democracy is not likely to figure in America’s fate, whatever that fate turns out to be. For Hunter’s proposal of renewed solidarity as a cure for our ills is not just insufficient, even on his own terms, but in conflict with his own defense of liberal democracy.
Much of Democracy and Solidarity is a study of the “working through” of “the contradictions of America’s hybrid-Enlightenment.” America was enlightened in its commitment to public discourse, universal principles of rationality, and liberal democracy. But qualifying those Enlightenment ideals were Americans’ Protestant fervor, sense of exceptionalism, and awareness of providence’s guiding hand in the New World. Hence America’s contradictions: on the one hand, a unique, particular national character; on the other hand, a promise of universality and equivalence among all peoples.
