BOOK REVIEW

Johnson, Joel A. _Beyond Practical Virtue: A Defense of Liberal Democracy
Through Literature_. University of Missouri Press, 2007. Pp. 179. Hardcover.
$37.50. ISBN 978-0-8262-1711-0.

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Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:
Terry Oggel
Virginia Commonwealth University

Copyright (c) 2013 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published or
redistributed in any medium without permission.


"No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been
said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other
forms that have been tried from time to time." Winston Churchill's famous
quip is popular and wise, and it is instantly intelligible. Churchill was
not a professional political theorist, but his clever remark catches the
essence of Joel Johnson's idea, especially when Johnson uses selected Mark
Twain writings in an important and unconventional way in service of a study
in political theory.

Michael Sandel, a political theorist, teaches one of the most popular
courses at Harvard, Moral Reasoning 22. Sandel challenges students with a
variety of tough topics like marriage laws, euthanasia and the death
penalty. Whatever the subject, the underlying question is always the
same--What is the right thing to do? What is just? The course is nicknamed
"Justice." The common theme for Sandel is that the answer must account for
more than simply allowing people to be civically virtuous--obeying the law
and being free to acquire as much money, property and power as they can.
This would be to understand liberty as nothing more than "negative
liberty"--the term used rather derisively following Thomas Hobbes to define
the freedom one has up to the point of being opposed by others. The answer
must go beyond this practical level of civic virtue to one that aspires to
"positive liberty"--the freedom that advances "individual development,"
that is, individuals' full intellectual and creative potential.

Behind Sandel's work and almost everything else that political theorists
have produced during the past 40 years stands John Rawls (1921-2002),
Sendal's longtime colleague at Harvard and the dominant political theorist
of the last half of the 20th century. His _A Theory of Justice_ (1971) is
credited with the resurgence of interest in substantive issues in political
theory--civil liberties and social justice--especially shown by the work of
such later scholars as Robert Nozick, Alasdair MacIntyre and Martha
Nussbaum, in addition to Sandel and now to Johnson.

Rawls was notoriously abstract (an "elegant" theorist, Johnson calls him),
whereas Sandel is more "practical," interested in the way a given form of
government operates in the real world. On one essential element, Rawls and
Sandel agree, and Johnson, too. They see the _public_ sphere as essential
for debate and decision-making. Johnson received his PhD at Harvard in 2002
and Sandel, Johnson's dissertation director, had the greatest influence on
his thinking. Taking his cue from Sandel, Johnson poses the questions: Is
liberal democracy the regime most likely to promote individual development?
Would Oligarchy be better?  Despotism?  Monarchy?  Socialism?  To answer his
own questions, Johnson has immersed himself in a second scholarly arena, one
that has arisen during the last two decades in which scholars in one
discipline, like law or economics or political science, turn to literature
rather than to legal documents, data analyses or philosophical treatises for
their argumentation. The work of Martha Nussbaum, Wai Chee Dimock and
Richard Posner have led the way here, though none of these has grappled with
the same form of hybridization that Johnson does, using novels to assess
liberal democracy.

In doing this Johnson breaks new ground. His method involves serious risks,
though to his credit he confronts the hazards and limits directly. For
example, playing his own devil's advocate he asks: How can the truth of a
theoretical argument be validated by the use of fiction? His reply, though a
little too easy, is simply "plausibility": is the "novelist's depiction of
character and plot reasonably true to life?" (160). That raises another
matter, the question of novelistic mode: realistic novels would be eligible,
but what about mythic/epic romances such as those written by James Fenimore
Cooper? Johnson refers to Mark Twain's expose of Cooper's implausibility,
"Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses," but only in a footnote and he
dismisses it glibly while winking at a passel of Cooper scholars who concede
its truth. This matter of novelistic mode is an important aspect of
aesthetics, a branch of philosophy that is central to Johnson's method. A
final hazard is probably the most controversial. Novels use language
figuratively. They will necessarily be reduced to "character and plot" in
order to be useful for argumentation. Indeed, the only purpose for novels in
an undertaking such as this is the aid they will provide for argument. Much
of a novel is, therefore, overlooked. This is disquieting, but the purpose
of Johnson's study is not to provide an enriched understanding of a novel,
but to employ literature to illuminate political theory.


The events of September 11, 2001 made it "brutally clear" that democracy's
"global ascendancy is hardly inevitable" and that we must be prepared "to
offer a full justification of liberal democracy, one that not only addresses
current criticisms, but [also] anticipates future objections" (1). To
confront this challenge Johnson constructs a kind of clinical test using the
United States as the representative democracy because it is the most
"extreme case of liberal democracy" (5). He selects three primary aesthetic
critics of democracy: Thomas Carlyle, Friedrich Nietzsche and T. S. Eliot,
along with several secondary ones (Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, D. H. Lawrence,
Matthew Arnold and John Stuart Mill), who are all ideologically rooted in
Plato. Against these major critics of democracy, Johnson pits three American
writers whose novels can be read as defending democracy: James Fenimore
Cooper, Mark Twain and William Dean Howells, along with several secondary
authors (Ralph W. Emerson, Henry D. Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Harriet Beecher
Stowe, Langston Hughes, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Martin Espada), who are
all ideologically rooted in Aristotle.

In this double-triptych dialectic on democracy, the three aesthetic critics
attack democracy for its incapacity to achieve the level of cultural beauty
and creativity that aristocratic regimes have produced. These critics
conclude that ultimately democracy will produce only dull mediocrity,
conformity and narrow materialism. The three American authors--Cooper, Twain
and Howells--on the other hand, are seen as defending the principles of
liberal democracy, not by addressing democratic theory but by depicting the
lives of ordinary people in a democracy, even if that democracy is far from
perfectly realized. As a literary genre, novels are best for this purpose
because they "focus on the rich detail of everyday life," showing thereby
"how democratic life is actually lived" (17). Johnson chose these three
novelists because they intentionally "investigate the relationships between
democratic institutions and individual development," because their writings
"complement each other effectively," and because as Americans, they
"observed firsthand the nation in which liberal democracy has best
flourished. . ." (22).

The well-known objection by the critics, the one that is of paramount
importance to Johnson, is that democracy thwarts creativity and attainment
of beauty. In defending against this charge, Johnson identifies what he
believes are the three most powerful forces within liberal democracy that
promote individual development: the enabling of people to "understand the
world for themselves, without mediation"; "the radical restructuring of the
relationship" between people and their community and environment; and the
value of the "public sphere in expanding and refining citizens' ideas about
the world" (5-6). For each of these he seeks a reality check by drawing upon
the novels--six of Cooper's novels, but chiefly the Littlepage Trilogy
published in 1845-1846; Mark Twain's _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ (1884)
and _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_ (1889); and Howells's _The
Rise of Silas Lapham_ (1885) and _A Hazard of New Fortunes_ (1890), with
brief references to _A Traveler from Altruria_ (1894). Mark Twain's and
Charles Dudley Warner's _The Gilded Age_ (1873), the novel that named the
age and one that is potentially highly valuable for Johnson, is not
mentioned. Its level of sarcasm probably made it unusable for argumentation.

Mark Twain seems to be the writer Johnson turns to most often and feels to
be a kindred spirit. He uses a passage from _Following the Equator_ for the
dedication of his book. As allies in defense of democracy, each Twain novel
appears to be perfectly suited for Johnson's purpose--_Huckleberry Finn_,
set in mid-19th century America with extended domination by a King and a
Duke, and _Connecticut Yankee_, set in 6th century England with extended
domination by a 19th century capitalist--and Johnson makes frequent and
occasionally lengthy use of them both, often with strong effect. Two
instances are good representatives, the first employing the Yankee and the
second concerning Mark Twain as a democratic writer.

The first of these is a dramatic event that occurs in the larger context of
Hank's effort to enlighten Camelot through scientific development and public
(re)education. Johnson highlights an event in the novel that brings
brilliantly into question the automatic denigration of the middle ages by
the modern world and simultaneously demonstrates the open-mindedness of
democracy ("understand the world for themselves, without mediation"). These
are shown when Hank's self-assured remonstrations are awed into quietude.
The passage takes place while Hank and Arthur are touring the kingdom
disguised as peasants. But, as Johnson writes:

"Arthur's disguise cannot keep his spirit from showing through. . . . After
several close encounters, in which Arthur acts insufficiently subordinate,
they arrive at a cottage whose inhabitants are dying of smallpox. Hank begs
Arthur to leave immediately, lest he be exposed, but he insists upon
helping: 'Ye mean well,' he tells Hank, 'and ye speak not unwisely. But it
were shame that a king should know fear, and shame that belted knight should
withhold his hand where such as need succor.' Arthur carries a dying girl
down from the loft to where her ailing mother is, causing Hank to observe:
'Here was heroism at its last and loftiest possibility, its utmost summit;
this was challenging death in the open field unarmed, with all the odds
against the challenger, no reward set upon the contest and no admiring world
in silks and cloth of gold to gaze and applaud; and yet the king's bearing
was as serenely brave as it had always been in those cheaper contests where
knight meets knight in equal fight and clothed in protecting steel. He was
great, now; sublimely great'" (132).

Johnson notes that Hank himself had recoiled upon learning of smallpox, and
he goes on to point out that though this sort of calculating self-interest
is common to Hank and other modern democrats, it "is foreign to the knightly
code" (133).

The second instance is a sharp observation when Johnson points out that of
all regimes only democracy foregrounds humor used politically, including
perhaps most of all, self-humor. "Having a democratic outlook," he writes,
"depends on the ability to laugh at both ourselves and others." In this
sense, he concludes, Mark Twain is the "consummate democrat, making fun of
humanity without exempting himself from ridicule" (121).

The result of Johnson's defense is a victory, albeit qualified and
tentative, for liberal democracy. Liberal democracy assures the widespread
practical virtues of civic life (justice, peace, prosperity) better than any
other regime does. Johnson concludes that it is capable of going beyond
practical civic virtue to promote the unique development of individuals, his
version of Rawls's and Sandel's justice and "the right thing to do." It
remains to be seen if liberal democracy, empowering low-born, unrefined
masses with political force, especially a form of it that foregrounds
capitalism (an aspect that Johnson scarcely takes note of), can achieve the
enduring beauty and spiritual refinement that define a great civilization.
But with a wise degree of caution, Johnson concludes that liberal democracy,
despite its flaws, is a "very good" model for the future (163).

Joel Johnson's defense of American liberal democracy is an ambitious
undertaking employing a complex and demanding methodology that blends
literature with other streams of scholarship. It brings fresh and
invigorating insights to thorny theoretical problems. Managed judiciously,
this method has proven to be highly effective, and Johnson employs it with
subtlety and discernment.

Johnson could have enriched his examination by including Henry Adams
(1838-1918) as one of his major critics of democracy. The three critics
Johnson uses (Carlyle, Nietzsche and Eliot) are appropriate but Adams came
to be a more articulate and passionate representative of that critical view.
This was because in his early years he was a strong advocate of the
potential of democracy to attain the "beyond" Johnson seeks. However, it is
no exaggeration to say that in his middle and later years Adams devoted
himself exclusively to expressing his disappointment in democracy. Virtually
everything he wrote in his mature years is written from the perspective of a
displaced intellectual in the late 19th century, and either cynically
depicts the corrupt democracy of his time that proves the ever-accelerating
decline of civilization or passionately details the sublime magnificence of
the 12th century, when man held the highest idea of himself in a unified
universe. Adams's mature writing is more comprehensive, more sensitive and
deeply perceptive, and more compelling than anything that Johnson's three
produced. To top it off, Adams is an American, the fourth generation of the
famous Founding Family and almost an exact contemporary of both Howells and
Mark Twain. Defending democracy against Adams would have required a great
deal indeed, but success there would have been resounding.


At first glance, both Mark Twain novels that Johnson uses are naturals for
his purpose. But what about other novels by Mark Twain that Johnson ignored?
I have already mentioned _The Gilded Age_.  _Pudd'nhead Wilson_?  On closer
examination _Huckleberry Finn_ may be considered a dubious choice. Its
conclusion is a dismal mockery of "freedom."  And even the _Connecticut
Yankee_ casts a shadow on the "progress" that democracy supposedly
represents. Henry Nash Smith years ago said the _Connecticut Yankee_ showed
that Twain had become convinced that his belief in human progress and
perfectibility was unfounded. After all, Mark Twain, who is frequently
linked with contemporary skeptics like Henry Adams in this regard, is not
usually sought as a bright hope about democracy. Still, for Johnson, who
implements well the choicest plot episodes from the most helpful novels in
aid of his argument, Mark Twain is the knight in shining armor defending
liberal democracy.