Word: adler
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...kick off the debate, Adler delivered a carefully argued paean to constitutional democracy, lauding it as "the ideally best form of government" because of its commitment to universal suffrage and the common good. "Only democracy," said Adler, "has the justice which comes from granting every man the right to participate in his own government." But Adler predicted that with the inevitable factional disputes between rich and poor, "political democracy will not work unless it is accompanied by economic democracy." And for democracy to survive, war and terrorism must end. Adler's remedy: "A single worldwide community" that would replace...
...form of government, in which "the ignorance of the many is mitigated by professional experience of the politicians." Quinton, 52, an analytic philosopher from Oxford, adopted a still more gloomy view, calling government "a necessary evil" that "allows for tyranny by the collectivity over the individual." Quinton also mocked Adler's belief that all want to share in government by voting. "I vote out of a sense of shame," said Quinton, adding that he looked upon the vote as if it were a life jacket on a ferry boat. "I want the right to use it if something happens...
...this is a discussion of the concept of nothing"; real democracy, he argued, did not exist anywhere. Some of the auditors criticized all three philosophers for being cautious and too far to the right; others asked whether civil disobedience should be taught in schools (answer: a qualified "sometimes" from Adler...
During the debate, Adler returned to a pet theory: that the good life promised by American democracy will come only when liberal education is truly universal. Said Adler: "We are hypocrites if we continue to think that the equality of citizenship belongs to all, but not the equality of educational opportunity...
...Adler's liberal education began at 15 when he discovered Plato while reading John Stuart Mill's Autobiography. In his own autobiography appearing next month, Philosopher at Large (Macmillan; $12.95), a chatty, often charmingly self-deprecating memoir of Adlerian triumphs and misadventures, Adler reports that Mill persuaded him to sample some of Plato's Dialogues...