Democracy

The core of every culture is made up of basic attitudes and standards of value. When these standards lose their power, the culture tends to lose its vitality and may ultimately perish in the competition with rival cultures. The basic standards of value of American democratic culture were definitely formulated in the eighteenth century in the affirmation of the essential dignity of man implied in the institution of popular government. Basic also to American culture was the belief that certain ethical universals provide the basic framework that makes society possible. These standards of value dominated American thought to the middle of the nineteenth century. But in the twentieth century they have been eroded by a skepticism born of the advance of scientific knowledge and are in danger of being overwhelmed by the intensified power struggle in the modern world that has been made possible by the success of science in putting energy into the hands of men. The hope that power may be tamed and skepticism checked lies in the paradox that science itself, which has made energy available to those engaged in the power struggle and has bred the skepticism that erodes the standards of value of traditional American democratic culture, puts reason above force and ceases to exist whenever those who pursue it depart from a fixed and universal ethical code

Democracy · Dignity · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Skepticism · Sociology · Value (mathematics) · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics