Window to Democracy

Peter the Great called St. Petersburg a window to the West. A window is very different from a door. A window lets in light, as well as giving you a bigger view. It even allows for neighborly conversations and debate, but falls short of a ready entrance whereby a too eager visitor might decide to rearrange the furniture.
Democracy, as it has been said many times, is not, fundamentally, a political system, but a relationship between people and, we would add, between people and something higher than themselves. To survive, democracies must respect fundamental rights and their higher basis. Yet, one country's democracy cannot survive in another country's climate given the greatly varied relationships between peoples of different cultures. It is the living nature of democracy, however, that is able to build on the best of a people's traditions and establish itself everywhere.
The excerpts shared here will be from a variety of sources, even quotes from many writing about freedom and democracy before their countries had achieved them. These excerpts reiterate ideas and ideals that are not only worth living, but have never become unnecessary -- even when they've not been lived. If these ideals are essential to the conscience of a country, they are shared here not so much to teach, as to remind us.

Democracy is a faith in the possibilities of human nature. But when we have said this much, what have we really said?
In our time, the possibilities for evil are only too apparent on all sides. This is what accounts for . . . authoritarianism, whether in religion or economics, in social organizations or politics. . . .
Yet democracy is faith in man's possibilities. It is not politics alone, for if it were and man were essentially evil, government would continuously degenerate. It is not economics alone, for if it were and man were essentially evil, we would before now have become a nation of slaves. It is not social alone, for if it were and man were essentially evil, we would be driven by an iron aristocracy. No, democracy is neither a political nor an economic nor a social concern taken separately. Nor is it just all of them taken together. It is rather, as Dewey has said, a moral ideal, a statement of the relations that should prevail among human beings.

SOMETHING HIGHER

Sooner or later, each one of us begins his search for a faith by which to live. In his quest for that faith, each turns to something higher than himself -- a body of ideals which promises to give meaning to his life.
In the long run, unless all the lessons of history be wrong, ideals are our most powerful weapon against tyranny and oppression. It is still, and ever will be, the truth which will make men free.

Unfortunately, we do not have the source of this quote.
It was taken from a juvenile book on democracy published
in the 1950s. We apologize for the lack of a definite source, but felt
the worth of the words deserved repeating.

THE ART OF THE IMPOSSIBLE

And now the time has come when there is indeed reason to rejoice. The revolution, with all its perils, is behind us, and the prospect of building a democratic state, in peace, lies before us. Could there be a happier moment in the life of a land that has suffered so long under totalitarianism?
     And yet, precisely as that splendid historical moment dawned, a peculiar thing happened to me. When I arrived at work for the first time after my re-election, I found I was depressed. I was in some sort of profoundly subdued state. I felt strangely paralyzed, empty inside. I seemed to have suddenly lost all my ideas and goals, my skills, hope, and resolve. . .
    The pressure of exhilarating events, which until then had aroused in me a surprising level of energy, abruptly vanished, and I found myself standing bewildered, lacking the inner motivation for anything at all, feeling exhausted, almost irrelevant. . .
    I wasn't the only one with these strange feelings; many of my colleagues at Prague Castle felt the very same way. We realized that the poetry was over and the prose was beginning; that the country fair had ended and everyday reality was back. It was only then that we realized how challenging, and in many ways unrewarding, was the work that lay ahead of us, how heavy a burden we had shouldered. . .

Vaclav Havel
The Art of the Impossible
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997; pp. 48-49

COURAGE IN A DANGEROUS WORLD

Youth must make a decision. It will have to decide whether religion, the spirit of social cooperation, is necessary to the development of a Democratic form of government and to the relationship which human beings must develop if they are to live happily together. If it is, youth will have to devise some means of bringing it more closely to the hearts and to the daily lives of everyone. . .
     Leaders of religious thought have tried for generations to make us understand that religion is a way of life which develops the spirit. Perhaps, because of the circumstances which face us today, the youth of this generation may make this type of religion a reality. I think they might thus develop for the future of this country and of the world a conception of success which will change our whole attitude toward life and civilization.
    Youth wishes to do away with war. But youth and the men and women of a Democracy will have to set their own house in order first, and show that they have something to offer under a Democratic form of government which is not offered by any other philosophy or any other theory of government. . .
    The citizens of a Democracy must model themselves on the best and most unselfish life we have known in history. They may not all believe in Christ's divinity, though many will; but his life is important simply because it becomes a shining beacon of what success means. If we once establish this human standard as a measure of success, the future of Democracy is secure.

Eleanor Roosevelt
Courage in a Dangerous World: The political writings of Eleanor Roosevelt
New York: Columbia University Press, 2000; pp. 48-50

NEW EXCERPTS

It cannot be repeated too often. Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville

Did you, too, O friend, suppose democracy was only for elections, for politics, and for a party name? I say democracy is only of use there that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruits in manners, in the highest forms of interaction between men, and their beliefs -- in religion, literature, colleges and schools -- democracy in all public and private life...

-- Walt Whitman

I take the same view of the claim that leaders are born, not made that Dr. Samuel Johnson took of cucumbers, which he said should be carefully sliced, well seasoned with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out.

--John W. Gardner:

If the young were born literate, there would be no need to teach them literature; if they were born citizens, there would be no need to teach them civic responsibility.

--Benjamin R. Barber

This page will be updated monthly and previous excerpts archived.