Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Democracy May Not Exist, But We'll Miss It When It's Gone

Democracy May Not Exist, But We'll Miss It When It's Gone

Taylor, Astra

Paperback

PhilosophyGeneral Political Science

Publisher Price: $19.99

ISBN10: 1250231280
ISBN13: 9781250231284
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Published: May 19 2020
Pages: 368
Weight: 0.70
Height: 1.10 Width: 5.40 Depth: 8.20
Language: English

What is democracy really? What do we mean when we use the term? And can it ever truly exist? Astra Taylor, hailed as a New Civil Rights Leader (LA Times), provides surprising answers.

There is no shortage of democracy, at least in name, and yet it is in crisis everywhere we look. From a cabal of thieving plutocrats in the White House to campaign finance and gerrymandering, it is clear that democracy--specifically the principle of government by and for the people--is not living up to its promise.

In Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone, Astra Taylor shows that real democracy--fully inclusive and completely egalitarian--has in fact never existed. In a tone that is both philosophical and anecdotal, weaving together history, theory, the stories of individuals, and interviews with such leading thinkers as Cornel West, Danielle Allen, and Slavoj Zizek, Taylor invites us to reexamine the term.

Is democracy a means or an end, a process or a set of desired outcomes? What if those outcomes, whatever they may be--peace, prosperity, equality, liberty, an engaged citizenry--can be achieved by non-democratic means? Or if an election leads to a terrible outcome? If democracy means rule by the people, what does it mean to rule and who counts as the people?

These inherent paradoxes are unnamed and unrecognized. By teasing them, Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone offers a better understanding of what is possible, what we want, and why democracy is so hard to realize.

Also in

Philosophy

View All