The Paradox of American Democracy / Democracy Derailed
Judis, John & Broder, David
the bottom of the story of an SS officer hiding in Cincinnati. A monologue "as if" by Frank Sinatra. A brief life of the narra- NOT JUST FOR ELITES tor given in long lines of unstressed...
...Ken- the book...
...There is a long distance becepted the political status quo," Joe Mc- neth Woodward invites the tween the sense of enchantment found Carthy stoked the passions of many work- reader to a richer and more rewarding in these stories and the crude creduliing-class Americans resentful of wayward consideration of what miracle stories ty/wish-fulfillment reflected in surveys, elites (George Wallace later followed suit...
...260 pp...
...jazz musicians call a "fake book"-a torical acumen pales in comparison to He buttresses this story by discussing rough, hand-written guide to the stan- his journalistic skills...
...To this sad scenario, welfare and regulatory policies...
...If you see City of God for sale on a provide his readers with a sweeping per- gues persuasively that this history illussidewalk or in a used bookshop, pass it spective on American political history trates how America's elites have placed by...
...an infinite Ha rcourt, 523...
...more than a workbook, it is what during the twentieth century, but his his- short-term gain before civic responsibility...
...He Hinduism, Islam now in our neighborhood playground, it calls for legislation that would cut back Kenneth L. Woodward might be a good idea to know each on corporate power and strengthen citi- Sirnoir and Schuster, $27,419 pp...
...He interprets them from within the Progressive Era belief stated so well by traditions, but that also serves as a dis- respective traditions...
...directed on technical points as Wood- others, thus excluding the Resurrection One way to do this is to improve the ward is-writing this sort of book is that of Jesus but including (perhaps inconmeans of deliberation and political edu- it entertains as well as instructs, with sistently, but we are glad) the Buddha's cation (through more public forums, in- very few descents into the solemnly di- experience of enlightenment...
...It is a mimetic riff on the century's defin- the Power of Money In explaining the current backlash ing account of creation-the Big Bang, David Broder against liberalism, Judis covers new "a great expansive flowering...
...rates plummet, polls report drooling over the promise of free markets...
...D Paul Elie, editor of A Tremor of Bliss: Contemporary Writers on the Saints, is a frequent contributor...
...specialized books for other academics...
...A third reafor public trust...
...Initiative Campaigns and real rewards at the end...
...Doctorow people, especially, show little interest in lawyers gutted America's relatively weak makes his big ideas small by offering political matters...
...So why wait for their combined these resources in a volume and exposition are simple...
...mean to the traditions that recount them...
...This weakness highlights a It may be that Doctorow's ambitions Elites, Special Interests, and larger problem in American intellectual were genuine...
...It is a new regulatory regimes created by enviphilosophical crazy quilt made from the ronmentalists and public-interest lobbysheets of our "wrecked romance with Kevin Mattson ists like Ralph Nader, turned profoundly God...
...Judaism, Buddhism, ticular...
...But he also sug- dency to think that all religions are bagests (or at least his story suggests) that sically saying the same thing, close study elites must rediscover their civic obliga- of miracles within their respective contions...
...This attitude-not Broder's wholesale rejection-seems ap- son, wish for a religion purged of all supropriate in the face of big money's abuse pernatural (that is, superstitious) eleof direct democracy...
...Read Newt Gingrich's rise and fall from power...
...other's stories...
...It seems to me that democ- and allows his judicious endnotes and gions...
...Judis arpline...
...Underworld, or a will to get the book into together, their books tell us a great deal Gingrich handed pens to corporate CEOs print before the last century was long about what has gone wrong...
...An embarrassing series of episodes under the rubric of the 1960s, Judis provides few insights...
...On this count, Judis's book Stories in Christianity, attention today for two reasons in parcorrects Broder's misplaced faith...
...It is a found object with the radi- reactionary during the 1970s...
...self-interest, no longer clothed in all that tivate some scholarly contacts...
...Woodward keeps the prose clean Part 1 deals with monotheistic relition drives...
...Businesses, upset by another, all at the same time...
...Finally, he wants to include storepublic run by civic-minded elites, why especially one as well-read and as well- ries that in principle were witnessed by not try to reengage citizens in politics...
...One years, Woodward has had the occasion more passionate about spirituality than answer is that they have discovered their to read more than a few books and cul- about religion...
...First, since the global village is So what about Judis's conclusions...
...Voting intellectuals could curse regulation while aspora of diasporas, a city of God...
...And after all, if big ments...
...The secUniversity Press, 1998...
...As Oregon's governor put it to Broder: "The FAR AWAY & LONG AGO process is a blessing, but the way it's being used is a curse...
...the miracle stories of the Hebrew Bible, Whitman Center (Rutgers University) and au- In his introduction ("Making Room noting how they tend to decrease as the thor of Creating a Democratic Public: The for Miracles"), Woodward acknowl- story progresses...
...Even during the placid generates into debates over but becomes more explicit at the end of 1950s, when, Judis argues, "Americans ac- whether they happen...
...stop in and visit us_ on the web: commonweal masazine.or9 Commonweal 2 4 May 5, 2000 cherish the power and concomitant responsibility delegated to them...
...American Democracy eralizations...
...After an introduction to Judaism, racy's challenge is to nurture civic virtues extensive bibliography to offer quiet Christianity, and Islam that surveys their among all citizens-not just elites...
...But what about Ameri- alk about miracles often de- son is not spelled out at the beginning ca's populist spirit...
...To judge from the apho- the Betrayal of Public Trust life: increasingly, journalists fill in a void risms with which he studs the text, like John Judis left by academic historians, who write cellophane-tipped toothpicks in a catered Poi theon Books, 526,305 pp...
...the bottom of the story of an SS officer hiding in Cincinnati...
...ries and those who, like Thomas Jeffer- tion on Christianity traces the miracle Commonweal 26 May 5, 2000...
...It is a coda to the twentieth cen- Democracy Derailed the first sections of Judis's book for the tury, and so partial, tentative, inclusive...
...Here the argument falters...
...He includes civic reawakening...
...who wrote their antiregulatory wish lists gone, he let go of craft, taste, and disci- Judis's book starts slowly...
...Out of a yearning to experi- add the analyses of two leading journal- endgame of these developments was ment, a desire to imitate Don DeLillo's ists, John Judis and David Broder...
...The them as is...
...ground and draws years of political jourseries of universes expanding into one nalism into focus...
...He has Woodward's principles of selection old-time civic lore...
...Covering the Pro- the decline of labor unions and the burndards, sketchy and artless, with no use gressive Era, the New Deal, and the out of 1960s activists...
...that functions quite well as an antholo- stories that are both interesting and clasMaybe all we have in the end is the old gy of miracle stories from five religious sic...
...teractive town meetings, or voter-educa- dactic...
...Judis never explains...
...After all, texts-even miracles that strongly reJudis asserts that up to the present, elites Luke Timothy Johnson semble each other-shows just how disembraced civic consciousness in return tinctive those traditions are...
...In spread, City of God is meant to be a Big this case, readers can simply skip over Book...
...Alas, City of God is none of these heightened levels of cynicism, and young At K Street lobbying firms, high-powered things...
...It is just a bad book...
...A monologue "as if" by Frank Sinatra...
...A brief life of the narra- NOT JUST FOR ELITES tor given in long lines of unstressed verse, as in the Jerusalem Bible...
...He then tells miracle Struggle for Participatory Democracy Dur- edges the very different worlds inhabit- stories associated with Jewish sages, ing the Progressive Era (Pennsylvania State ed by the recorders of his miracle sto- saints, and spiritual masters...
...which report major portions of the popMore important, why have elites suddenly A senior writer at Newsweek and that ulation believe more firmly in UFOs and dropped their civic consciousness to fol- magazine's religion editor for thirty-six personal angels than in God, and are low the money...
...Woodward argues that the money is so powerful, why believe that The Book of Miracles miraculous is at the heart of the world's representative institutions can withstand The Meaning of the Miracle religions and that such stories deserve it any better...
...Second, against the tenzen input in government...
...some point in time) human-even if as of hoping for a return to a constitutional The advantage of having a journalist- avatars...
...his "Midrash Jazz Quartet," in which the nar- reading is spotty, drawing from dated rator, again in verse, offers religio-exis- The Paradox of interpretations and tending toward gentential glosses on Tin Pan Alley standards...
...During the ant energy of the writer's consciousness o say that American democ- 1970s and 1980s, corporations funded a and the manic street vibe of New York, racy is in crisis is like saying slew of right-wing think tanks where hired an "island cathedral, a religioplex," a di- the earth is round...
...These details sugother than to remind them how a song goes, in case they have forgotten...
...He tries to into the "Contract for America...
...El support for his unpretentious and effi- respective founders and sacred texts, cient management of a complex collec- Woodward walks the reader through Kevin Mattson is associate director of the Walt tion of stories and religious traditions...
...He recounts only John Dewey: "The cure for the ailments of tinctive (and often undervalued) point of stories involving figures who are (at democracy is more democracy...
...Instead entry into the study of religion itself...
Vol. 127 • May 2000 • No. 9
