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Prefacing as Educating
Prefacing as Educating: Building Educational Utopias and Barber’s Strong Democracy Samantha Deane
Loyola University Chicago Introduction Benjamin Barber wrote Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age in 1984. In the 31 years since, he has penned three prefaces. One is the companion to the 1984 edition, another came in 1990, and the third was written to commemorate the book’s twentieth anniversary edition in 2003. Common to each preface is Barber’s reminder that the only hope America has hangs on the realization of strong democracy. As such, he ends the 2003 preface with these words: “Strong democracy is no longer America’s last best hope - it is humankind’s last, best, and only hope.”1 Twenty years earlier, the preface to the first edition concluded in a similar manner: “There is one road to freedom: it lies through democracy. The last best hope, now as two hundred years ago, is that America can be America: truly self-governing and democratic, thus truly free.”2 Together, Barber’s prefaces make two interrelated claims: one, that strong democracy is not only desirable, but also that it is humanity’s salvation; and two, that we must keep the faith even though the desired future has not come to pass. With each new preface, the claim escalates. In the initial 1984 preface, strong democracy is American’s best hope; in the final 2003 preface, it becomes humanity’s only hope. But what does it mean to sustain hope in an idea for over 200 years or, in Barber’s case, for 30? For Barber, it must mean, in part, that you stick with it in spite of failure. You keep writing prefaces. You keep reframing the goal as a means to sustain hope in the idea that you believe has the power to change society for the better. But three prefaces to a single text by a living author can begin take on an apologetic tone, striking a pleading note for an audience’s continued ear. The main goal of this article is to explore the criticisms of Barber’s idealism by fleshing out the educative purpose of drawing readers into ideals via prefaces. If the purpose of a preface is to introduce background concepts, to frame purposes, to bracket things that will not be spoken about, or here to buttress a strong ideal with words of hope, what does the second and third preface do? In Barber’s case, each preface is a call to maintain hope, a reminder that although strong democracy has not come to be, it is still a good idea. It is important to note that time is at work here. Time passes and the world changes, but when the world changes in ways that do not align with the anticipated ideal, that change is frustrating. The world was different in 1984. The Berlin Wall was standing. Computer technology was novel, and had the potential to be a panacea. Today, 31 years later we, the reader, can see all the ways the future is and is not different from the world as it was then and from what was predicted to unfold. From a historical perspective we can moderate between the past and a future to explicate the present. If, in the language of Arendt, the gap between past and future is opened in the act of thinking deeply and publicly, then how do authors address readers in order to educate them in the middle ground of the PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 2016 | Natasha Levinson, editor H I Philosophy L O S O P HofYEducation O F E DSociety U C A T| Urbana, I O N 2 Illinois 016 © P2018