Editor's Page

"The man who first flung a word of abuse at an enemy instead of a spear was the founder of civilization." Sigmund Freud once quoted this adage with approval, and its (apocryphal) point is plain enough. But its insufficiency as a maxim for democratic civilization is also evident. Healthy democracy demands more: partisanship in good faith—rather than partisanship as a surrogate for spears. That's why we need to fret about the state of contemporary American public culture. Rhetorical venom is a vintage phenomenon in the country's politics back to attacks on "Godless" Thomas Jefferson. There is also a sorry history of demonizing and misrepresenting foes within the left (as every "renegade social democrat" knows).