Tradition, Transformation, and Democratic Education

As Tocqueville saw almost 200 years ago, rituals sit uncomfortably with democratic people, who tend to see them as inegalitarian or unjust impositions of authority. Molly Farneth's new book, The Politics of Ritual, encourages American progressives to see ritual differently. Rituals, she says, can be enacted in novel ways to serve democratic ends in the service of political and cultural transformation. But in emphasizing the transformative potential of rituals, Farneth may undersell the traditional value of rituals—a value that I think should be just as important to contemporary progressives. Against the serious antidemocratic forces arrayed in the United States today, most of which speak in terms of “transformation” and “disruption,” progressives would do well to think of themselves as the conservators and protectors of democracy—not just as radical innovators. In making this argument, I give special attention to the state of U.S. higher education.