Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Hancock, Curtis L

Titel

Amerykańskie społeczeństwo demokratyczne w ocenie Amerykanina

Ist Teil von

• Człowiek w kulturze, 2008 (20), p.113-130

Ort / Verlag

Fundacja »Lubelska Szkoła Filozofii Chrześcijańskiej

Erscheinungsjahr

2008

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

EZB Free E-Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In American English there is an expression to convey that someone may love another in spite of his or her defects. We say, “I love so-and-so, warts and all,” a wart being a distracting blemish on someone’s appearance. An honest appraisal of American democracy must take into account its blemishes as well as its pleasant features. The author attempts that appraisal as an American who also happens to love his country. Any effort to explain a society requires an examination of its three dimensions: culture, economics, and politics. He respects this triad as he discusses central features of American democratic society, focusing on its strengths and weaknesses. In conclusion, the author says that the founders of the American nation understood that every society, including their own, is an Augustinian project. Since human beings are not angels, they require a government that separates its powers and provides checks and balances. Moreover, human beings require a society that pays attention not only to public virtue but to private virtue as well. This latter requires a moral and religious culture where one generation embraces its ancestral obligation to transmit moral standards to the next generation. The founders knew that America would not be perfect. But they appreciated that nothing has constructive energies like a purposeful, intelligently led democratic society.