Democracy within
: I quite liked this description of democracy (lower case) in Jeremy McCarter’s review of the play Democracy (upper case) in the New York Sun.
The new play shows how democracy-the system of reconciling irreconcilable goals-operates in Germany, and in Germans. We are each of us a democracy, the play argues, a mass of conflicting perspectives, divided loyalties, contradictory motivations. Brandt himself is charismatic but brooding, moody, and various. “So many people, with so many different views, and so many different voices,” he muses. “And inside each of us, so many more people still, all struggling to be heard.”
That’s how I felt before the election: red voter on one shoulder, blue voter on the other, confused voter in the middle.
