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self-involvement is always at odds with democracy as a form of social or–
der and social understanding. That narcissism shows itself in special
interest groups of one distinction or another, almost all of them so hyp–
notized by their own mirrors that they cannot see themselves in
relationship to the society at large, particularly in any way that we might
call profound. So the pace of the world, the intimidating velocity that at–
tends the machines which we hate as much as we love, and the need for a
democratic vision of interconnection are what challenge us no end. As in
every dark period of our history, when the sun seems to be on leave, the
fog thick as an elephant's hide, and doom grooming itself to take the so–
ciety out, there are those who will tell you that they know exactly which
of us are to blame for all of this and just what should be done about them.
But ours is a dark period that arrives in a very unusual form. In a
number of ways, we have more than we have ever had - better health,
better wages, longer life spans, finer living conditions - but we are either
cynical or angry about how poorly we have handled the demons of
crime, ignorance, and prejudice. Our cities are now looked upon in the
popular imagination as they were by hayseeds over a hundred years ago -
Sodoms of violence, sexual plague, and potential catastrophe. The trend
to get away, to move out into the suburbs, has reversed the motion from
the rural to the urban that historically brought so much surging vitality to
each metropolis, helping to define the culture and the sophistication of
the country. Where the blues singer might once have sung of how the
bright lights of the big city stole his baby from home, the contemporary
blues of urban life weighs upon those who no longer believe in the
mythic city - that place which musicals and elegant jazz big bands made
into an enormous ballroom large enough for the whole society to enter,
each person bringing his or her vision of romance, of community, of ef–
fervescence. Crass concerns have taken over. Those who have made
their getaways from the cities angrily worry about being taxed to support
incompetent bureaucracies. The poor of the cities believe that they and
their children are cursed by the contempt and the neglect of the more
fortunate. If those poor are members of so-called minorities, their gripes
are connected to the raw and seamy aspect of our racial history.
Our problems now call for a redefinition in the direction of demo–
cratic consciousness, but a consciousness that must reassert, it seems to
me, the unusual combination of tragic recognition and optimism which
underlie the deepest meanings of our social contract. In
The All-American
Skin Game,
I make the point that our society is organized on principles
that accept the perpetual struggle between problems of power and the
ideals pushed into the world by the Founding Fathers. Those men, be–
cause of their contempt for aristocratic privilege and because of their
