THE MEDIA AND OUR COUNTRY'S AGENDA
599
sions, the impossibility of eliminating them, and the need to control
them. Luxuriant and prurient passions are partially satisfied, partially
denied; desires for autonomy are fulfilled and demands for sacrifice are
made; material possibilities are realized and individual labor is required.
A balance is not achieved by fiat or attained by theoretical argument.
But to an outsider, only the possible satisfactions become c1ear–
along with the possibility of still greater satisfactions. The great awak–
ening is that it is possible to awaken. This is one reason why democratic
culture has been seen as both a promise and threat across the globe. In
1830 Goethe wrote that after wars, nations "could not return to their
settled and independent life again without noticing that they had
learned many foreign ideas and ways, which they had unconsciously
adopted, and come to feel, here and there, previously unrecognized spir–
itual and intellectual needs." What previously happened through war–
fare now takes place through television and commerce. And awakening
previously unrecognized material, spiritual, and intellectual needs is just
what American democratic culture has done across the globe. This has
nothing to do with cultural imperialism. No one is repressively demand–
ing that a particular movie be loved, that MacDonald's be patronized,
or that fundamentalist religion modify its ideas. The possibilities are
displayed and desires are satisfied. Democratic culture is so powerful an
influence because it doesn't just suggest that there is one other way of
thinking about things-a different way of playing string instruments or
arranging marriages. Democratic culture is powerful because it suggests
that many things are possible, that ancient hierarchies are not
immutable, that doctrines enforced as if by natural law can be altered;
the awakened needs meet awakened possibilities. Before the ideas of
democratic culture, what hope does a traditional, pre-modern, tribal or
religious society have? At the same time, how can such an awakening
not also be experienced as a threat? The promises and dangers are inter–
twined; so is the envy and the hatred. Is it any wonder that in
Afghanistan, televisions were strung up from trees like electronic
corpses by the Taliban while, at the very same time, Afghani women
were risking their lives to go to Western-style beauty parlors? Or that
Islamic terrorists should sharpen their own hostilities toward the West
after enjoying its comforts and liberties by living in the United States or
Europe? Or that the Kaffeeklatsch should at once seek to destroy the
principles of democratic political culture and spend their time discussing
Hollywood movies? Great things are promised by democratic culture;
great uncertainties are raised; great hostilities are generated; great dis-
