Free Democracy Matters by Cornel West Page B

nihilistic forces. The voices and views of nihilistic imperialism may currently dominate our discourse, but they are not the authentic voice of American democracy.
    The major shortcoming of our contemporary nihilists—evangelical,paternalistic, and sentimental ones—is that they lack a substantive democratic vision grounded in a deep commitment to the ideals they profess to uphold. Evangelical nihilists like President Bush and Karl Rove give us a raw and robust imperial vision of America as a lone sheriff unilaterally policing a world more and more dependent on foreign oil, trade, and investment while obscene wealth inequality escalates at home. In short, to them genuine democracy matters little, plutocracy reigns, and empire rules. Paternalistic nihilists such as Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator John Kerry put forward a seductive yet weak technocratic vision of America as the economic engine of a global economy that uses its soft (nonmilitary) power to ensure its hegemony while wealth inequality stabilizes (or slightly declines) at home. On this view, democracy matters somewhat, corporate elites reign tempered by some liberal conscience, and empire speaks softly and carries a big stick. Namely, the paternalistic nihilists have all too willingly accepted the script put out by the evangelical nihilists of the American empire, so we, as a mass public, have not engaged in the deep questioning that might have followed 9/11. Ironically, the sentimental nihilists of the media, who ought to have encouraged this questioning, instead all too happily accepted the Bush administration’s script about WMDs and Saddam’s links to Al Qaeda, and relished the media frenzy of war, even as they failed to spotlight the truth about Bush’s tax cuts or put their lens on the environmental and social travesties being inflicted by the administration. They are becoming mere parasites on their evangelical and paternalistic nihilist hosts.
    The aim of this book is to put forward a strong democratic visionand critique, rooted in a deep democratic tradition forged on the nightside of the precious American democratic experiment—a tradition of Socratic examination, prophetic practice, and dark hope. This vision takes us far beyond those of the American nihilists. It is a Socratic-driven, prophetic-centered, tragicomic-tempered, blues-inflected, jazz-saturated vision that posits America as a confident yet humble democratic experiment that should shore up international law and multilateral institutions that preclude imperial arrangements and colonial invasions; that should also promote wealth-sharing and wealth-producing activities among rich and poor nations abroad; and that should facilitate the principled transfer of wealth from well-to-do to working and poor people by massive investments in health care, education, and employment, and the preservation of our environment. On this vision—filtered through the lens of race in America—democracy matters much, hardworking and poor citizens reign, and empire is dismantled so that all nations and peoples can breathe freely and aspire to democracy matters, if they have the courage and vision to do so.

3

THE DEEP DEMOCRATIC TRADITION IN AMERICA
    We are a people tending toward democracy at the level of hope; on another level, the economy of the nation, the empire of business within the republic, both include in their basic premise the concept of perpetual warfare…. But around and under and above it is another reality; like desert-water kept from the surface and the seed, like the old desert-answer needing its channels, the blessing of much work before it arrives to act and make flower. This history is the history of possibility…. All we can do is believe in the seed, living in that belief.
    —M URIEL R UKEYSER ,
The Life of Poetry
(1949)
    If the first hope of the democrat is the hope of building in the zone of overlap between the conditions of practical progress and of individual emancipation, the