Journal

Political Science Quarterly: Tradition, Transformation, and Democratic Education

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As Tocqueville saw almost 200 years ago, rituals sit uncomfortably with democratic people, who tend to see them as inegalitarian or unjust impositions of authority. Molly Farneth's new book, The Politics of Ritual, encourages, American progressiveness to see ritual differently. Rituals, she says, can be enacted in novel ways to serve democratic ends in in the service of political and cultural transformation. But in emphasizing the transformative potential of rituals, Farneth may undersell the traditional value of rituals - a value that I think should be a just as important to contemporary progressives. Against the serious antidemocratic forces arrayed in the United States today, most of which speak in terms of "transformation" and "disruption," progressives would do well to think of themselves as the conservators and protectors of democracy_ not just as radical innovators. In making this argument, I give special attention to the state of U.S. higher education.

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Publisher

: ., 2025

Collation

Vol.140 No.2 p.357-368

Language

English

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NONE

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Subject(s)

Democracy
Ritual
Progresssivism
Higher education
Disruption
Religion

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