Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-260) and index.
Contents
Introduction : The democratic malaise -- The revolt of the elites -- Opportunity in the promised land : social mobility or the democratization of competence? -- Does democracy deserve to survive? -- Communitarianism or populism? The ethic of compassion and the ethic of respect -- Conversation and the civic arts -- Racial politics in New York : the attack on common standards -- The common schools : Horace Mann and the assault on imagination -- The lost art of argument -- Academic pseudo-radicalism : the charade of "Subversion" -- The abolition of shame -- Philip Rieff and the religion of culture -- The soul of man under secularism.
