The Brooklyn Rail

“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”

―Alexis de Tocqueville

“History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.”

―David McCullough

Most of us have become aware that we Americans are no longer as unique as we once were, especially in the years between the end of World War II and the end of the Cold War, which was a good run. Despite the various proxy wars in which we were involved, such as the Korean War (1950–53), Vietnam War (1954–75), and Desert Shield/Desert Storm (1990–91), we’ve relished a good period of prosperity, even in the aftermath of 9/11 and the 2008 global financial crisis. But in recent years, what we once considered unique about our country—more individualistic, agile, and mobile than most countries, no longer seems to hold.

As we’ve now come to realize, we have been undergoing a spiritual and moral crisis that has led to a kind of spiritual recession, in which politics became a seductive form of social therapy. Instead of being engaged in a politics of redistribution, where the arguments are about how high or low our taxes should be, or where the nation’s spending should be invested, we’ve been confronted with a politics of recognition—a profoundly destructive platform indeed, for millions of lonely people who feel indignant when they see current domestic or world events unfolding on the screens of their TVs, computers, or iPhones; all of which compels them to enter politics as a way of dealing with their sense of anxiety, alienation, and depression—at least in the short-term. This sense of self-righteousness leads people to feel that their sense of purpose is affirmed, therefore giving them the illusion that there is a war between Good and Evil, and that they’re on the right side of it. This leads to people wanting to get retribution from others, even complete strangers, if they feel those people belong to the opposite side; and so making them feel shameful, humiliated, or degraded is made to seem completely justified. It is this corrosive condition that undoubtedly breeds authoritarianism, as it has been cultivated both here at home and abroad.

In a sense, there are two kinds of law in this country: one, constitutional law, made by people; the other, ordinary law, made over people by their representatives. As a result of the way these two kinds of law coexist, we accept both a formal power and an informal power, which reflects the way our Founding Fathers had managed to create two rival theories that will always need to dispute one another on all matters regarding the legal boundaries that lie between the states and the national government. And since both political parties, left and right, are equally invested with similar aspirations, we can assert that people can change the constitutional law, but they must live under the ordinary law. Under this profound assumption that both parties can be both significant and inconsequential—significant when significant issues are at stake, inconsequential when personnel issues are at stake—democracy in America is endowed with a self-corrective mechanism. For every four years both parties get a chance to compete with one another through the presidential election. And so each can revise, reconstitute, and adapt to new conditions that are beneficial to our commonwealth. Or not.

So while it’s true that our forthcoming presidential election, which is unlike any previous one, will be taken as a storm, it will eventually pass, despite all the noises and frictions we’ve experienced since the Trump presidency. At this critical moment we can imagine that both parties are hard at work trying to ask themselves about two things that they may have been taking for granted since the end of the Cold War I, as we now have entered Cold War II: One, what is the function of the press? Can the press formulate critical issues and pertinent events, then provide people with forums that allow them to get informed about alternative opinions and solutions, and so on? As people have feelings and opinions of their own, so does the press, insofar as it represents the right to know, for people often are incapable of rational convictions by either believing in something or doubting something. Here lies again the tyranny of the minority, resting on firm belief, which is the characteristic of aristocracy, as opposed to constant doubt of the tyranny of the majority, being the characteristic of people who have surrendered to their inability to form opinions or act on their own motivations. Two, how can we now redescribe political associations? Can we assume, here in America, that political associations are equally as important as individual rights, for example the right to associate? For as we know, individual rights only become active through the act of association. To associate is to make things effectual, for associations are to some extent artificial, yet they depend upon our natural inclinations, as we’re inclined to be with our other fellow human beings. Again, to associate is to form a network of premises—for example, a specific object of our own contemplation, which then requires in practice the art of association to concretely bring it to its actual form. In thinking of the polarities leading to next month’s election on November 5, we hope that we can rest assured by the way the power of our freedom can be splendidly tempered by these three conditions: decentralized administration, for the law is administered by people we know in our locales; the influence of lawyers, for they hold both aristocratic and democratic elements while providing necessary formalities through legal language; the importance of juries who oversee individual circumstances, for the generality of the law is not always correlated to a particular situation or a specific defendant.

Onward, upward with love, courage, and cosmic optimism as ever,

Phong H. Bui

P.S. We are excited to announce that we will be celebrating the rollout of our new and dynamic website on October 24, on the occasion of the Rail’s 24th anniversary! This issue is dedicated to the remarkable lives and works of our mentors and friends, David Anfam (1955–2024), Rebecca Horn (1944–2024), Fredric Jameson (1934–2024), Steve Silberman (1957–2024), and Jacqueline Winsor (1941–2024), all of whom our critical culture is indebted to, in their fearless, inventive, and agile thinking. We would like to welcome our friend William Corwin as our new Editor-at-Large, and we are grateful to our friends Joshua & Megan Rogers, for their generous sponsorship of the Rail’s ever-popular Fiction section. We also would like to send our resounding congratulations to our two friends, Charles Bernstein, for his America Award for Lifetime Contribution to International Writing, and to Joan Kee, for her appointment as the new Director of NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts. Finally, we are thrilled to announce Singing in Unison, Part 10: Loren Munk & James Kalm at Ruttkowski;68 in Tribeca. Please join us for our opening reception on Thursday, October 17, from 6–8 p.m., featuring a cooking performance by Rirkrit Tiravanija, Tomas Vu, and their graduate students from Columbia University.