Lincoln and Douglas

Last year I read a nonfiction book every month, but I never finished December's: Lincoln and Douglas: The debates that defined America. I finished it tonight.

There was no reason it should have taken me to finish this (besides reading other things in the meantime) because it was really interesting. It would spark some really interesting conversation in a book group. The only cumbersome part was reading summaries of each debate because they were somewhat redundant. The epilogue had really interesting commentary that I could have read more of.

"But at the deepest level, what Lincoln defended in the debates was the possibility that there could be a moral core to a democracy. The fundamental premise of Douglas's popular sovereignty was that democratic decision-making, in order to be free, has to be unencumbered by the weight of factor's which are nonpolitical in nature, such as kinship, ethnic identity, or moral and religious obligations."

Francis Fukuyama discussed this idea in saying: "there is no struggle or conflict over 'large' issues, and consequently no need for generals or statesmen...what remains is primarily economic activity". I like the commentary on this: "But to what end? To sit at the end of the historical tracks, free, but only free to indulge one's personal preferences? Fukuyama's...nightmare was that the 'last man' would turn out to be the 'comfortable burgher, blinking stupidly and wondering about dinner...cowardly, greedy and self-absorbed' a society 'with no ability or inclination to defend itself or anyone else.'"
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