and Educational Reform Recovering Spiritual Democracy for Our Materialistic Times

The still unfolding epic of these United States has taken a strange turn at the start of the twenty-first century. The nation acts in many ways as though it has all the democracy it wants. The push now is to concentrate all effort on greater eco-nomic growth, even though we are by far the richest nation on the planet. Ever since the Spanish-American War, the allure of material goods has led this nation away from a republic and toward global empire. Today, it is possible that we are in the last years of the republic. This paper is a response to a sense that America is entering the age of empire. Naturally, public schools follow the course of the society they serve. In-creasingly, American schools fit the needs of business, industry, and government, not the needs of individual citizens and democratic community. Instead of aim-ing to instill a desire for personal growth and responsible democratic participa-tion, public schools now are devoted to refining human resources for the na-tion’s production function and for the military forces that occupy the empire. Consequently, it is not easy for some of us to support the nation’s public schools, because we find it impossible to support the passing of the republic. Equally dif-ficult is the realization that American democracy may soon be a fleeting histori-cal possibility that never realized its full potential. We believe the greatest American epic is not Moby Dick, how the west was won, how capitalism defeated communism, or how the nation will win the com-petition for control of global markets. The greatest American epic is the story of what it means to attain spiritual democracy. The enduring story of spirituality seeks relations that are more intimate with the world around it, especially other people, and values a commonwealth wherein individual, creative acts matter in the course of cosmos. The continuing story of democracy is one of unique indi-viduals questing in community with other such individuals for more intimate re-lations. Spiritual democracy seeks spiritual fulfillment in democratic commu