Cover Image

Wild democracy : anarchy, courage, and ruling the law /

This is a manifesto for a wilder democracy. This is an ethic for free, courageous and anarchic democrats. Courage is necessary because fear is the death of democracy. Fear--fear for personal security, fear of change and loss--leads to fascism and authoritarianism. Anarchy protects us. Anarchy is not...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Norton, Anne (Author)
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023]
Series:Heretical thought.
Subjects:
Democracy.
Anarchism.
Anarchisme.
anarchism.
POLITICAL SCIENCE.
History & Theory.
Anarchism
Democracy
Politics & government.
Politics and Government.
Electronic books.
Online Access:Connect to the full text of this electronic book
Table of Contents:
  • 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.