This chapter considers the place of democracy in the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. By conceptualizing democracy, in pragmatist fashion, as a \u201cway of life,\u201d Emerson can be shown to have engaged democracy throughout his career in several different dimensions, both within and beyond official, state, or legal power relations. While Emerson participated in a discourse that was skeptical of the social dynamics of democracy in mass society, he simultaneously upheld his commitment to a philosophy of history that recognized in what he called \u201cthe democratic element\u201d a driving force toward greater justice and equality. Democracy furthermore provided the key through which Emerson interpreted his own practice and poetics as a freelance lecturer. Emerson\u2019s commitment to a transcendentally conceived notion of justice at times came into conflict with democracy\u2019s requirements of negotiation and compromise, particularly in the context of radical abolitionism and the Civil War. As this chapter argues, Emerson tirelessly strove to resolve this conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Voelz, Johannes (2026): Democracy. In: Jonik, Michael (Hrsg.): The New Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Cambridge University Press, S.\u00a0156-174.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":14072,"template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"publikation_cat":[151],"disciplines":[447],"series":[],"class_list":["post-14071","publikation","type-publikation","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","publikation_cat-buchkapitel","disciplines-literaturwissenschaft"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikation\/14071"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikation"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/publikation"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"publikation_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikation_cat?post=14071"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=14071"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/normativeorders.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=14071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}