Part I: America and the Problem of Modernity
1 Worldview, Choice, and Dialogue
Worldview as Issue and Choice
New Worldview
Dialogue, Tradition, and Practice
American Ambiguity
2021 Conversational Aside: Dialogue and the Human Future
2 Ideologues, Nihilists, and the Depressed—and Relationalists
Corporate Capitalism and the Abandonment of America
Hating Reasonable Discourse
Ideologues, Nihilists, and the Depressed
Ideological and Relational Worldviews
2021 Conversational Aside: On Relationality
3 Moral Disease: The Late-Modern Condition in America
The Modern Eclipse of America
Conversational Aside: The American Bubble
Two Modernities
From Individualism to Moral Disease
2021 Conversational Aside: The Question of Soul
4 Nothingness and Gift: Eleven Glimpses
2021 Conversational Aside: The Ambiguity of Nothingness
Part II: Relational Worldview
5 Reappropriating Tradition
Conversational Aside: The Perspective of Nothingness
Traditional Wisdom
Modernity, Reappropriation, and Dialogue
Postmodern Critique and Return of Wisdom
American Tradition and Democratic Spirit
Conversational Aside: Contra Postmodernism
6 Dialogue as Democratic Possibility
The Emergence of Dialogue
Six Qualities of Dialogue
America and New Worldview
Conversational Aside: Reappropriating the Modern
7 What We Can Learn from/with China 101 The Mystery of Chinese Vitality
Confucian Vision
Chinese-American Dialogue
8 Dialogue, Development, and Pluralism
Three Pluralisms
Conversational Aside: Going to Pittsburg
Dialogue and/as Practice
Huston Smith as Example
Conversational Aside: Paradox and Relationality
Part III: Reviving Civic Virtue
9 A Liberal Confession
Conversational Aside: American Challenge
A Nearly Forgotten Subtradition
From Sixties Activism to Liberal Education
Conversational Aside: ’60s in Shanghai and Chicago
Conversational Aside: Education as Reform
Waves of Discovery and Challenge
Return of Relational Liberalism?
10 American Clash and Revival
American Clashing
Reappropriating the American Vision
11 Pragmatism Revisited
Conversational Aside: A New Universalism
12 Democratic Life, American Hope: A Meditation on/from the
Practical Turn
Practice in the Post-Traditional Era
Conversational Aside: Education as Transformation
Decision, Openness, Return
Interpretation and Engagement
Components of Practice
Resistance, Faith, and Surrender
13 Liberal Education as Democratic Practice
Claiming a Liberal Education
Ideas and Relationships
Contemporary Agenda
A Democratic Curriculum
Conversational Aside: Nihilists Annoyed
Conclusion: Democracy Somewhere