Simon Stow

Reading Our Way to Democracy? Literature and Public Ethics

“I believe,” wrote Franz Kafka, “that we should only read those books that bite and sting us. If a book we are reading does not rouse us with a blow to the head, then why read it?”1 Almost all of us who read books for a living and/or pleasure have undoubtedly experienced that most delightfully troubling of phenomena: a novel that forces us to think differently about the world and the way that we live. In recent years, literature’s capacity to generate in its readers “a rigorous scrutiny of everything they believe in and live by”2—what Stanley Fish calls its “dialectical” potential—has drawn the attention of a number of liberal-democratic theorists, most notably Martha Nussbaum and Richard Rorty. By “liberal-democratic” is meant here, of course, that system of government with popular rule, regular elections, a commitment to individual rights and the rule of law; one that draws on a tradition of political thought that includes the work of John Locke, John Stuart Mill and John Rawls. Although their exact formulations of the claim differ in important ways, Nussbaum and Rorty are united in the belief that reading can enhance the practice of liberal-democracy by expanding the moral imaginations of a citizenry. Such an expansion will, they believe, promote the values of tolerance, respect for other viewpoints, and a recognition of the contingency of one’s own perspective, in short, the values of civil society. Whilst there is undoubtedly something intuitively appealing about their claim, there is much that is philosophically and politically problematic about their respective formulations of it. Both seem to rest for example upon an implausible theory of the impact of literature upon its readers, and an illiberal tendency to treat readercitizens as means and not as ends. Attempting to capture what is of value

From Upper Canal to Lower Manhattan: Memorialization and the Politics of Loss

The New Orleans Katrina Memorial is located at the upper end of Canal Street, an inexpensive and relatively short trolley car ride from the citys tourist hub in the French Quarter. Despite its ease of access, and close proximity to the more famous cemeteries to which tourists regularly make pilgrimage, the memorial is little visited and largely unknown, even to many of the citys own residents. In this it stands in stark contrast to the National September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan, which drew its millionth visitor less than four months after its opening on September 12, 2011. Recent work in political theory on memory, mourning, and memorialization—as well as Ancient Greek concerns about the same—point to the ways in which the manner of remembrance, grieving, and commemoration employed by a democratic polity help to shape political outcomes. In what follows, I trace the history and design of the New York City and New Orleans memorials to suggest the ways in which they embody and perpetuate national strategies of remembrance and forgetting, in which injustices perpetrated against the polity are prioritized over injustices perpetrated within it. Drawing on John Bodnars distinction between national and vernacular commemoration, I nevertheless conclude with a counter-intuitive suggestion: that while on a national level the publics relative ignorance of the Katrina Memorial is indeed indicative of a polity more concerned with injustices perpetrated against it than within it; on a local level the erection and subsequent forgetting of the Katrina Memorial is a manifestation of a mode of vernacular memory, mourning and commemoration with far more democratically-productive potential than its counterpart in New York City. In particular, I argue that it cultivates, and historically has cultivated, a more forward-looking, progressive, and polyphonic response to loss than the type of dominant national narratives embodied by the 9/11 Memorial. Whereas the latter continually replays the loss in ways that rob the polity of its capacity to move beyond its initial response, the former acknowledges and incorporates the loss while steeling the community for the challenges ahead.

Agonistic Homegoing: Frederick Douglass, Joseph Lowery, and the Democratic Value of African American Public Mourning

What does the furor over the “politicization” of Coretta Scott Kings funeral reveal about contemporary black mourning practices? What does it reveal about black political thought, rhetoric, and practice? Identifying two key modes of mourning and their concomitant conceptions of democracy, this article situates the funeral within a tradition of self-consciously political responses to loss that played a significant role in abolitionism and the struggle for civil rights. Tracing the traditions origins, and employing the speeches of Frederick Douglass as an exemplar, it considers the approachs democratic value and the consequences of its failure. Arguing that the response to the King funeral indicates that the tradition is in decline, the article locates causes of this decline in significant changes among the black population and in the complex consequences of the traditions previous successes. It concludes by considering the declines potentially negative impact, both for African Americans and for the broader political community.

Histories, Logics and Politics: An Interview with Mark Bevir

Although he has written extensively on a broad array of topics, Mark Bevir is most famous for his influential and controversial book The Logic of the History of Ideas (Cambridge University Press, 1999). In a wide-ranging interview, Bevir responds to a number of criticisms and mischaracterizations of the book, clarifies his aims in writing it, and identifies his relationship of his postfoundationalism to both analytical and continental philosophy. Additionally, Bevir articulates a hitherto unexpected ethical dimension to the work, suggesting that it seeks to provide for a philosophy of the human sciences that incorporates those capacities for agency and reasoning that make us fully human and are thus deserving of respect. As such, he connects the book to the broader web of moral and political beliefs that underpin his work as a whole.

American Skin: Bruce Springsteen, Danielle Allen, and the Politics of Interracial Friendship

Arguing that the political theorist Danielle Allen and the rock musician Bruce Springsteen offer similar analyses of the causes of, and solutions to, America’s racial divide, this article employs Springsteen’s music and his efforts to model his relationship with Clarence Clemons as an example for the broader American polity to consider the plausibility of Allen’s claims about interracial friendship as a source of political reconstitution. Detailing the criticism of the friendship model of racial politics set out by Benjamin DeMott, and the more specific criticism of Allen’s formulation offered by Lawrie Balfour, it argues that considering Springsteen’s work as a practical embodiment of Allen’s theory suggests not only that Allen fails to surmount such critiques but also that the problems of Springsteen’s relationship with Clemons indicate further ways in which friendship, as a form of citizenship, is an inadequate solution to the political problems of race that Allen identifies.

Is state‐centered inculcation of virtue utopian in nature? Thoughts on George Klosko's Jacobins and Utopians

Staking out new territory in utopian thought and analysis, George Kloskos Jacobins and Utopians examines neither utopian theory nor the actual practice of political reform but what might rather be termed the “theory of practice.” Despite this innovation, the book remains underdeveloped, relying on some weak arguments and unexamined assumptions to support its central claim: that persuasion models of political reform are ineffective and that only state‐centered inculcation of virtue in the citizenry—which Klosko labels “educational realism”—is sufficient for radical change. By failing to consider the performative and the possibility that theory might be a form of practice, Klosko misrepresents the effectiveness of persuasion models in order to champion his preferred alternative. Nevertheless, the book offers much that is of value beyond its initial distinction: there are fascinating accounts of major, and not‐so‐major, figures in the Jacobin and utopian traditions.