Wild democracy : anarchy, courage, and ruling the law / Anne Norton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Norton, Anne, -1671, author.

Series:

Heretical thought.

Heretical Thought

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Anarchism.

Democracy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (241 pages)

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023]

Summary:

Wild Democracy calls for a more anarchic, more courageous democracy. This is an ethic for people who know the rights they hold, and who struggle to rule themselves. This is an ethic for pirates and rebels; an ethic for those who will not be mastered. Democracy is always a risky business; full of promise and danger. The promise is freedom. The danger is fear: fear of the unknown, fear of the unruly, fear of one another, fear of anarchy. Fear leads to authoritarianism. Anarchy leads to courage, to self-reliance, self-discipline, and self-rule. Liberals and conservatives look to institutions to control an unruly people. Anne Norton's vision of democracy turns on democratic people: on ethics, practices, and the courage to rule ourselves.

Contents:

Cover Page

Half Title

Series

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Forward

I. Anarchy, courage, democracy

1. Anarchy is the shadow and salvation of democracy. Authoritarianism is democracy's enemy.

2. For anarchy we need the anarchic.

3. Democracy is shabby.

4. Fear is the enemy of the free.

5. If people are to rule themselves, they must have courage.

6. Democrats take risks.

II. Free people keep something wild in them

7. Rebellion is not only a right, it is a duty.

8. Empire is the enemy of the democratic.

9. The democratic citizen is both sovereign and subject.

10. Free people keep something wild in them.

III. Rights are born in the body

11. Rights are grounded in the body.

12. People have the right to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness.

13. People have the right to assemble.

14. People have the right to speak and to be silent.

15. Assembly nurtures the democratic. Assembly preserves the anarchic.

16. People have the right to a place in the world. People have the right to stay or to leave, to come or to go.

17. Rights are born in us. They are above, beyond, and before the law.

18. Rights are inalienable.

19. Rights are held in common.

20. Rights are above, below, and beyond the law. Rights undergird the law. Rights elevate the law.

IV. Free people rule the law

21. Rule law. Do not simply be ruled by it.

22. Justice, like democracy, goes beyond the law.

23. People should judge. Democracy depends upon judgment. Democracy hones judgment.

24. The people are wise.

25. Democracies depend on truth.

26. Truth prospers when the people rule.

V. Democrats live with open hands

27. Democracies are places of wild diversity.

28. The democratic disposition is cosmopolitan.

29. How free people love their countries.

30. Democracy is generative. Democracy is excessive. Democrats live with open hands.

31. Democrats can tolerate the undemocratic.

32. All you need for democracy is humanity.

33. The strength of the poor is the strength of democracy.

VI. Taxes

34. Taxes are how people pay for the work they do together.

VII. The problem with liberalism

35. Undemocratic governments are unjust, but not all democracies are just. Democracy is a necessary but not sufficient condition for justice.

36. Liberalism is a problem.

37. Populism is a democratic force.

38. Institutions alone cannot ensure that the people rule.

39. How free people might choose their leaders.

40. The people, steering.

41. Without free and courageous people, there are no democratic governments.

42. Decentralization protects the ability of people to rule themselves.

43. People can always recall their representatives, servants, and officials.

44. Executive energy belongs to the many as well as the one.

VIII. Force is the enemy of the free

45. Military power is a danger to democracy.

46. Free people go to war together or not at all.

47. Private weapons are offensive to free people.

48. Punishment demeans the free.

49. Free people are not policed.

IX. Unfinished revolutions

50. We are not democrats yet. We do not yet rule ourselves.

51. Self-​rule is a discipline.

52. We are not yet finished with revolution.

53. Democracy is not an idyllic state

democracy is a struggle.

54. Democracy is fugitive.

X. Canon fodder

55. Forget Athens. Forget democratic genealogies.

56. The canon of Western political philosophy was forged against the people.

XI. Democratic times

57. Democracy is episodic.

58. The time of democracy is a time of celebration.

59. The time of democracy is a time of danger.

60. The time of democracy is a time of creation.

61. Democratic time is sacred time.

62. Democratic time is before, after, and now.

XII. The direction of the democratic

63. Democrats are conservative, progressive, and radical.

64. Democracy moves upward.

65. Democracy moves downward.

XIII. Democratic spaces

66. People preserve the anarchic and nurture the democratic when they assemble.

67. Democracy lives in the city.

68. Democracy lives in the countryside.

69. Free people carry the democratic with them. They carry it into the factory, the shop, the school.

70. Democracy cannot be fenced out of the economic realm or separated from the social.

71. The rule of the people lives and is endangered in each person's body.

XIV. Friends and enemies

72. Equality is proper to democracy.

73. Inequality corrupts democracy.

74. Friendship teaches people to live as democrats.

75. Who are the enemies of democracy? What is to be done with them?

XV. Democratic divinity

76. In ruling themselves, people become divine.

77. The voice of the people is the voice of God.

78. The people sing.

79. The earth belongs to the living.

Appendix of imperatives

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes index.

Other Format:

Print version: Norton, Anne Wild Democracy

ISBN:

0-19-764437-6

0-19-764435-X

0-19-764436-8