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While
we recognize that no public order or political culture
can be perfect, we are conditionally but strongly committed
to the historic ideals and basic institutions of liberal
democracy. More than and prior to a political system, liberal
democracy is a public culture defined by a set of relational
and discursive practices and norms for public engagement
that center around a cluster of ideals and propositions
about liberty, justice, and the common good. We hold these
commitments because in the historically contingent and
fluid circumstances of the modern epoch, human flourishing
manifests itself publicly (and not just politically) in
the ideals of liberal democracy rightly understood. Far
from perfect and easily corrupted, democracy is, nevertheless,
the public manifestation of the common good and the political
form of the humane ideal.
Perhaps the most significant
challenge surrounding liberal democracy in our day concerns
its longstanding and paradoxical relation to religion.
Religion continues to be both a source of some of the greatest
misery in the world and a source of extraordinary good.
It is clearly at the root of so much of the political terror
and social disorder we see around the globe, but it also
remains the deepest wellspring of generosity, compassion,
and cultural vitality. The Institute studies this paradox,
which is not well understood. |
