A defence of democratic politics, this book argues that democracy comprises a structure based on two incompatible world-views: one relativist and liberal, the other absolutist and conservative - the combination of which is at once essential for its success, yet also that which threatens its survival.

Bruce Fleming is Professor of English at the US Naval Academy and is the author most recently of The End of the Modernist Era in Arts and Academia, What Does 'Art' Mean Now?, The Civilizing Process and the Past We Now Abhor, Masculinity from the Inside, and Saving Our Service Academies: My Battle with, and for, the US Naval Academy to Make Thinking Officers.

Acknowledgments

1. Democracy as Oddball

2. Philadelphia 1776 and Beyond

3. Democracy Is a Game with Rules, and Some People Play It Better Than Others

4. Absolute and Relative Are Yoked Together

5. The Arc of History Does Not Bend toward Democracy

6. Rights and Freedom in Democracy

7. Freedom Is Linked to Goals

8. The Dangers of Overselling Democracy

9. Democracy's Two Elements at War

10. Democracy Isn't Supposed to Be Sexy

11. Absolutist Actions vs. Relativistic Actors

12. Democracy Is Constructed, Like a Building

13. Do People Even Want to Be Free?

14. Laws, Freedom, and Democracy

15. Belief within Democracy

16. Democracy Doesn't Demand the Provable

17. Reason vs. Passion in Everyday Life

18. Works Cited