When I was fourteen an acquaintance from high school took a dare. He climbed up the huge structure that supported a power line; it took an hour for him to reach the top, but from where we were below it seemed like an eternity. When he reached the top he waved confidently, then to our amazement there was a huge spark. Two hours later when the police brought his body down his metal rimmed glasses were molten slabs fused to his face. They made us see it. All that I remember distinctly of the incident in the absurd smirk on his face which was the only visible expression on his horribly charred body.

When we went to the March in New York in my freshman year it was grand. In wrote down in my notebook how reinvigorating it was to march through such a large city with several thousand people and feel free and powerful with them. We were a community ad we talked together as we moved along. Here within the heartland of the city-land I was finally feeling at home a little. We did not accomplish much; but the thing that made it so poignant for me, even now, was that I have been to New York on five separate occasions and I cannot remember ever having spoken to anyone of the ten millions who live there while on the streets.

Whenever one thinks of American political democracy one finds oneself thinking of the workings of American political parties. It has become nearly second-nature for people to assume that the workings of American parties and American democracy are synonymous. For a society which agrees about this image of the democratic process it would seem inappropriate to suggest that the main influence on the government that of the party system, contradicts the democratic intent. Americans have always held that political parties, this nation's political parties anyway, are inherent to the functioning of democracy.

But this impression is historically false. When this nation began the founding fathers were opposed to political parties. "Let me now take a more comprehensive view," said George Washington in his farewell address, "and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party." Our worries are different from the ones which plagued Washington in his time but a similar question does reappear in the modern context, namely, what is the relationship of political parties to the functioning of American democracy?

One must begin with an understanding of the term democracy. For in America we are perilously close to raising the image of democracy to a secular from of religion without every really understanding this god that we worships.

The most comprehensive way to approach American democracy is to look at its genesis. But the sources of American democracy have never been well understood. When in the late nineteenth century Frederick Jackson Turner, a Harvard professor of History, came out with his thesis attributing the growth of democracy to the influence of the frontier environment, it was greeted with warm applause, then critically torn to shreds. Yes, America had developed its own brand of democracy the critics agree; but, no, the "frontier" thesis was not an accurate analysis of its growth. Since that time no single work has appeared to unravel the somewhat mysterious evolution of American democracy.

One is not left in total ignorance, however. There has appeared a effort to characterize the homeland in which democracy developed, and thus identify the impetus behind it.

Democracy flourished on the frontier. First in the small towns of New England, then later in the prosperity of the middle western plains, democracy grew in the process of town building and the community effort required to produce prosperity. Abraham Lincoln was its symbol and proponent in the nineteenth century.

The growth of democracy was characterized by three related elements: widespread participation in the political process which was deeper and more meaningful than the ceremonial functioning of casting one's ballot; open access to elective office which does not pretend to be compatible with the development of an office holding elite; and thirdly, a sense among the people that they did possess the ability to effectively manipulate their government. These concepts are interrelated, and each of them makes a common contribution: opening, and keeping open, channels between the people and the government.

Yet time has transformed America. At the start of this century Progressives tried to give more life to American democracy and Theodore Roosevelt boomed out the old spirit in new forms. But the modern century was not as simple as the last -- the communities had already been built and the frontier had been closed -- the American environment had radically changed.

American entered a war in the world community, and when it emerged it spirit was drained and its passion tempered. Then technology spread across the land, and in little time and with almost no effort the large majority of Americans owned cars and television. The government formally took upon itself the assurance of economic prosperity in 1946, so that by today most people think they have nothing to do but complete their lives without much bother. Most of us can sit in our metropolitan communities, pleasantly board.

It should be clear that the homeland of democracy has changed. The environment that served from the genesis of a working democracy is no longer, and democracy now sits atop the bustle of highly industrialized society only in name.

The new arena is composed of corporations, cities, and bureaucracy. Corporations have a pervasive influence, cities are the home of most of the people, and bureaucracy seems to be the major characteristic of government. All this is very different from the climate of the last century. And democracy, in this new neighborhood, has certainly undergone alterations.

But, more importantly, the characteristics of the American people have changed. The nature of America is dull. Wrapped in the red tape and the scientific technology that makes the present impossible, we are future oriented. We live, thus, ignoring immediate frustrations, assured by a moment in the future.

To take a dare and be close to danger is difficult in America. Not much more than a hundred years ago one could have wandered through unknown wilderness, chanced upon a few angry Indians and been killed, or run into wild animals to be trampled to death, or have to cross the plains and, running out of supplies, simply die of starvation. The world was an unavoidable challenge. Of the first Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, one half of them died in the first few months, and those who remained began a new experience in which danger was common and to face it only commonly courageous.