Democracy: Beyond the horizon of habits

Been meaning to post on this for a minute. Finally got the impulse to do it. Found this wonderful definition of democracy from that Carl Wilson book about Celine Dion I've talked so much about. This blog is starting to turn into the Carl Wilson Appreciation Society. If it really were, I'd be writing about how I went to his reading downtown last night instead of staying home to nap and clean my room. Anyway...

This is what I mean by democracy--not a limp open-mindedness, but actively grappling with people and things not like me, which brings with it the perilous question of what I am like. Democracy, that dangerous, paradoxical, and mostly unattempted ideal, sees that the self is insufficient, dependent for definition on otherness, and chooses not only to accept that but to celebrate it, to stake everything on it. Through democracy, which demands we meet strangers as equals, we perhaps become less strangers to ourselves.

Yes. I like it. And, though I would rather keep this blog away from the political--but a) how can it not be at this point in time and b) anyone who's talked to me knows my persuasions--I will say that I think there is one candidate--in this election and in my lifetime thus far--that knows this definition of democracy so well, and knows it to his/her (okay, his) core. Wilson is saying that his encounter with Celine helped him to come to this conclusion. It is fitting that HRC, as Wilson points out, picked a Celine song for her primary campaign. My suspicions are, though, that she and Wilson are not on the same page about this.

mark.