Liberal democracy and cultural greatness: Cooper, Twain, and Howells on the possibilities of individual development (James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain, William Dean Howells)

This dissertation examines the relationship between liberal democracy and individual development. Certain nineteenth- and twentieth-century critics claim that liberal democracy necessarily produces narrow-minded, materialistic citizens, and that democracy's record of securing peace, prosperity, and justice means little unless the truly human problem of fuller individual development is addressed. On their view, democracy will wallow in mediocrity without a strong state or an aristocracy to elevate citizens' cultural level.; I defend democracy against this assault. With the help of three American novelists (James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain, and William Dean Howells), I argue that the democratic experience of the world is fundamentally fuller and richer than the aristocratic experience, and serves to develop the democrat's faculties to a greater degree than the aristocrat's. More specifically, the democrat's daily struggle for autonomy in the face of material necessity serves as the basis for significant development, especially in the presence of a vibrant public sphere.; Of course, any actual democracy contains significant countervailing mechanisms, such as injustice, inequality, and the vestiges of obsolete regimes. Much of democracy's supposedly poor performance regarding individual development can be attributed to these factors. Policymakers should work within the confines of liberal democratic justice to control these undesirable tendencies, in order to let the positive mechanisms work properly.