Democracy Through Thick and Thin

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It matters a great deal how the American public tries to make sense of the many problems we face in the world today. Take, for example, the financial crisis of the last two years. Though it will take time to fully comprehend the historical significance of the downturn, its human costs have been staggering and continue to spread. Yet when it comes to investigating the origins of these problems and considering possible remedies, our public discourse has been predictably shrill and unhelpful.

Democrats blame the GOP for driving the economy into a ditch and declare that now the Republicans “want the keys back.” Republicans, in turn, accuse Democrats of using the crisis to impose a radical change in the role of government, putting at risk both national solvency and the free market system itself. Liberals call conservatives “free market fundamentalists” while conservatives call liberals “socialists.” Round and round we go.

Needless to say, it is not just the financial crisis that gets reduced to rash hyperbole. So do most other issues: immigration, unemployment, health care, family values, environmental damage, war and terrorism. On these matters and others, our public discourse consists in large part of overwrought accusations and empty sloganeering. On the face of it, the most important issues of our time are all too often engaged in ways that are inadequate to the complexity they represent. In the world’s most powerful and longest-standing democracy we should expect better, and as citizens, we need more. It matters.

As I’ve tried to understand how we arrived at this unhappy place, I have often considered the political philosopher Michael Walzer’s distinction between “thick” and “thin” moral reasoning. In the U.S., as in other liberal democracies, the symbols, metaphors, and aphorisms of public discourse are expressions of a moral reasoning that is “thin.” Thin moral reasoning consists of abstractions that are capable of commanding widespread support in a pluralistic society. We may disagree deeply about the meaning of words like “freedom” and “justice,” but they are ideals at least nominally shared by all.

“Thick” moral reasoning, by contrast, is more particular and complex. It is grounded in history and in the normative ideas of more comprehensive moral and religious traditions. Abrahamic religion and classical political philosophy are some of the obvious sources of moral thickness in the Western tradition. They give us, among other things, our notions of self-sacrificing virtue, whether of the saintly or the civic variety.

In principle, thick and thin moralities coexist in constructive tension. They work best, I would argue, when interrelated. The thin gives popular expression to the thick, while the thick provides richer possibilities within the thin. Beyond these philosophical distinctions, however, are sociological realities that complicate matters considerably.

The cultural circumstances of the late modern world undermine thick expressions of moral reasoning and the strong forms of culture they engender. An ever-expanding pluralism means that we share less and less in common. Platitudes are all that remain. Likewise, the new communications media, with their fast turnover of information and entertainment, cultivate a bias toward the superficial and titillating. Thick moral understandings lose their particularity and their intelligibility. Complex issues tend to be reduced to slogans, denunciations, and clichés. Disconnected from thicker, more comprehensive ways of understanding, we end up with a public discourse of sound bites and bumper stickers. Thin trumps thick, and trite trumps all.

I don’t mean to say that thin moralities are always a bad thing. They create the possibility of coexistence in a fragmented world. If we all hold lightly to our beliefs, it becomes easier to tolerate differences within society. Everyday social life in the pluralistic late modern world would be impossible without the flexibility that thinness provides.

But when all that we have is this thinness, we lose the various competing frameworks for talking about complex problems in more coherent ways. We lose the moral resources — the commitment, will, vision, and courage — to act on our problems over the long term. As the moral philosopher Charles Taylor has so eloquently argued, if we are to maintain high moral standards and enduring moral commitments, we must be able to draw upon thicker ideas of our moral and public ends. These sources have by no means disappeared, but they are now less available to us.

In light of the current economic crisis, we need new and creative ways of thinking about economics, business, and the common good. Given the genuine moral failures of our leadership class and the pressing ethical demands of modern life, we need new and creative ways of thinking about and cultivating virtue among the young, so that they are not lost to egoism, cynicism, and nihilism. In facing the conflict and tensions inherent in a pluralistic world, we need richer resources for understanding our differences and working through them peaceably. The juvenile accusations and worn-out clichés that dominate our public discourse on these and other matters are simply inadequate to the critical challenges facing us.

We must work toward greater “thickness” in our politics, economics, education, media, and families, in ways that reinforce common ideals and uphold common goods. Strong democracies, just economies, vital communities, meaningful education, and morally inner-directed persons depend on this careful balance, especially in times of adversity. Failing to meet this challenge will leave us with a culture that is shallow and trivial, one that is incapable of understanding the difficulties of our time, much less of addressing them with wisdom and courage.

James Davison Hunter is Labrosse-Levinson Professor of Religion, Culture, and Social Theory at the University of Virginia and the author, most recently, of To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. Read more about him at jamesdavisonhunter.com.