Turning Off The Lights: Democracy In The Dark
The front-runners in the Iowa caucuses and now in the New Hampshire primary, seem to detest one another, but they agree on one thing: that the Democrats want unlimited government pushing unearned "entitlements" and Obama style "socialism," while Republicans seek an "opportunity society" which means, well, no government at all. The Republican Party is effectively at war with the public sphere.
What this means in practice is evident in Highland Park, Michigan and other cities that have been pulling the plug on street lamps. There is no more dismal metaphor for America's abandonment of the public sphere than the decision by Highland Park to rip up a swath of its street lights in the name of public parsimony. Whether in Asia, Africa or Latin America, the first thing any township aspiring to civility and modernity does is put up street lights. Why? Because doing so keeps the emerging public square illuminated 24 hours a day, because it pushes private violence out of town into the shadows beyond, because it symbolizes the coming of civilized daily life where the right to safe public spaces is an essential priority of what it means to live in civility -- and in time, under democracy.