By Malcolm McCullough. M.I.T. Press.250 pp. $25
[Introduction to articles on civility in America]
The decline of civility was a relatively new concern when we published this historical perspective on the phenomenon in the Autumn 1996 issue. The introduction we wrote then is perhaps even more apt today: “A democracy, more than any other society, is built on mutual trust and cooperation among strangers, on the street as well as in the meeting hall. Creating and sustaining such trust was an important public commitment of America’s early years—one that we seem increasingly unable to make.”
The United States was not born civil. Its citizens learned how to behave themselves, in public and in private, over the course of a century and more.
No single thinker has had a more decisive influence on the course of modern philosophy--and general intellectual inquiry--than Rene Descartes (1596--1650). On the 400th anniversary of Descartes's birth, Anthony Grafton considers the forces that shaped the man and his thought.
Indonesia, a newsmagazine recently reminded its readers, is no obscure backwater. It was a strange thing to say about the world's fourth most populous country and its largest Islamic one. Yet for 30 years this vast, ethnically varied archipelago state has, by trading political freedoms for stability and material progress, avoided many of the woes that draw attention to developing countries. Now, however, the long reign of 75-year-old President Suharto is nearing its end and with it, perhaps, the commitments and compromises that made Indonesia's New Order possible.
Two hundred years ago, on September 19, 1796, George Washington announced his decision to step down from the presidency. As venerated as Washington remains today, few Americans appreciate the wisdom contained in his carefully crafted Farewell Address--wisdom that earlier generations of Americans considered an indispensable part of their nation's political thought.
Fifty years ago, in postwar Tokyo, General Douglas MacArthur gave a group of young Americans the assignment of drafting a new constitution for Japan. The resulting democratic charter has ordered Japanese political life ever since. Our author tells the story of this unusual "constitutional convention."
The author of Was Huck Black? tells how she came upon an insight, long recognized by African-American writers, that led to her pathbreaking book.
The thoughtful Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne last summer chided presidential candidate Robert Dole for his favorable review of the box-office hit Independence Day and his more mixed assessment of the recent output of Hollywood in general. Dionne's swipe was only half serious, and the columnist ultimately conceded that presidents and presidential aspirants should be encouraged to take matters of culture seriously, even to comment upon them from time to time. They should indeed.