deep freedom 301
Th e second order of justifi cation of these principles is the broad range
of the practical, moral, and spiritual interests served by the form of po-
liti cal and social life that they support. Even before discussion, later in
this chapter, of the distinctive institutional attributes of this form of life,
its most visible and pervasive characteristics should stand clearly in
view. Th ese characteristics suggest the range of those interests. Th ey in-
clude the relative deliquescence of the fi xed institutional and conceptual
structures to which we habitually surrender; the imprint onto ordinary
life of that level of aroused striving and engagement that we expect only
in the midst of great crisis; and the tapping of all the sources of inspira-
tion and challenge, beginning with religion, that classical liberalism and
secular humanism have so zealously wanted to exclude from demo cratic
politics. To recognize what is at stake in the commitments represented
by these principles is to acknowledge both the religious character of
politics and the po liti cal implications of religion.
Th e high- energy democracy that here is foreshadowed, with its dimin-
ishment of the dependence of change on crisis and its relativizing of the
contrast between the ordinary moves we make within a framework taken
for granted and the extraordinary moves by which we change pieces of
the framework, is the po liti cal counterpart to the moral idea of enhanc-
ing the good of life. By deepening democracy, we continue our ascent,
broaden the range of the near possible, and deal with our mortality and
our groundlessness in a fashion that rests on no illusion. We solve, in the
only way in which it can be solved, the problem of our estrangement from
the present. We do so by establishing arrangements that give us a better
chance, right now, of exercising our power to live, to think, and to feel
without regard to any formula imposed on us by the social roles that we
perform and the society and culture to which we belong.
Th e preeminence of the principles that I next discuss has a par tic u lar
historical setting. Th is setting amounts to an aspect of the same situa-
tion that calls for a religious revolution. For Machiavelli and Hobbes,
writing in the early modern period in Eu rope, the foremost issue of
po liti cal life was social union and civic confl ict. Th ey saw confl ict as
both a threat to union and an instrument of union. Th e fi rst task of the
state was to deliver men and women from death at one another’s hands
and to impose an order on the ever- renascent disorder of social life.