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[rejectomorph]

Democracy proceeds on the assumption that nobody knows enough, that nothing is final, that the old order (whether of men or institutions) will be carried offstage every twenty years. If democracy can be understood as a field of temporary coalitions among people of different intersts, skill,and generations, then everybody has need of everybody else. To the extent that a democratic government gives its citizens a chance to chase their own dreams, it gives itself the chance not only of discovering its multiple glories and triumphs but also of surviving its multiple follies and crimes.

-Lewis Lapham, in the Fall, 2001 issue of Harper's magazine.