# Alain Locke's Philosophy of Democracy

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Christopher Buck, Alain Locke's Philosophy of Democracy, bahai-library.com.
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> ! 24                                                       Studies in Bahá’í Philosophy
> 
> CHRISTOPHER BUCK (Pittsburgh, USA)
> 
> ALAIN LOCKE’S PHILOSOPHY OF DEMOCRACY
> 
> There is no formal “Baha’i philosophy.” Yet there are professional
> philosophers who are Baha’is, who therefore may be broadly
> characterized as “Baha’i philosophers.”1 Foremost among Baha’i
> philosophers is Alain Leroy Locke (1885–1954).2 Columbus Salley, in
> The Black 100, ranks Locke as the 36th most influential African
> American ever, past or present.3 More significantly, Locke has been
> acknowledged as “the most influential African American intellectual born
> between W. E. B. Du Bois and Martin Luther King, Jr.”4
> This paper presents Alain Locke’s philosophy of democracy, in nine
> dimensions, as a contribution to the study of Baha’i philosophy, in its
> broader context as philosophical thinking by professional philosophers
> who were religiously engaged as members of the Baha’i Faith. Baha’i
> values synergized Locke’s philosophy of democracy or, at the very least,
> now serve as a useful heuristic for understanding and appreciating certain
> aspects of Locke’s philosophy of democracy. Locke’s grand (though not
> systematic) theory of democracy sequenced local, moral, political,
> economic, and cultural stages of democracy as they arced through history,
> with racial, social, spiritual, and world democracy completing the
> trajectory. Adjunct notions of natural, practical, progressive, creative,
> intellectual, equalitarian democracy crystallized the paradigm.
> Locke made history in when he became the first African American
> Rhodes Scholar in 1907. As one contemporary, writing that same year,
> has said: “In what he has achieved, a race has been uplifted.”5
> Historically, Locke is most closely associated with the Harlem
> Renaissance (c. 1919–1935), aptly characterized as a movement that
> 
> 1! . Christopher Buck, “Alain Locke: Baha’i Philosopher,” Baha’i Studies Review 10
> (2001/2002): 7–49.
> 2! . Christopher Buck, Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy (Los Angeles: Kalimat
> Press, 2005).
> 3! . Columbus Smalley, The Black 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential African-
> Americans, Past and Present, revised and updated (Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1999
> [1993]), p. 137.
> 4! . Leonard Harris & Charles Molesworth, Alain L. Locke: Biography of a
> Philosopher (Chicago and London: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2008), p. 1.
> 5! . William C. Bolivar, “Alain LeRoy Locke.” African Methodist Episcopal Church
> Review 24, no. 1 (July 1907): 19.
> Alain Locke’s Philosophy of Democracy                                                 2! 5
> 
> sought to achieve “Civil Rights by Copyright.”6 In 1925, Locke edited
> The New Negro: An Interpretation, the historical significance of which
> Eric King Watts notes: “Only a few claims regarding the Harlem
> Renaissance are uncontested: that The New Negro stands as the
> ‘keystone,’ the ‘revolutionary’ advertisement, and the ‘first national book’
> of African America is one of them.”7
> There is also synergy between the social objectives of the Harlem
> Renaissance and Alain Locke’s philosophy of democracy. As to the
> purpose behind the Harlem Renaissance, Locke is crystal clear: “The
> Negro mind reaches out as yet to nothing but American wants, American
> ideas. But this forced attempt to build his Americanism on race values is a
> unique social experiment, and its ultimate success is impossible except
> through the fullest sharing of American culture and institutions.”8 The
> Harlem Renaissance achieved a major objective of the New Negro
> movement, which was to instill a race pride in Blacks and a
> corresponding respect for Blacks by mainstream America. This race pride
> created the group consciousness that was a necessary precondition for the
> mass mobilization of African Americans led by Dr. King during the Civil
> Rights movement. As the acknowledged “Dean” of the Harlem
> Renaissance, Locke sought to ennoble the perception (and self-
> perception) of African Americans through an “ameliorative use of
> stereotypes” and by “advocacy aesthetics”9 whereby art served as a
> cultural ambassador in promoting ideal race relations.
> As historically important as his pivotal role in Harlem Renaissance
> surely was, Locke’s legacy as philosopher may just as profound, as
> Leonard Harris points out: “Alain Locke, I believe, is the sentinel
> historical figure in the history of African American professional
> philosophers because he conjoins an interest in the historically important
> issues of social well-being crucial to the African American intellectual
> 
> 6! . David Levering Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue (New York: Penguin, 1998),
> p. xxviii.
> 7! . Eric King Watts, “African American Ethos and Hermeneutical Rhetoric: An
> Exploration of Alain Locke’s The New Negro.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 88, no. 1
> (Feb. 2002): 19–32, citing Houston Baker, Jr., Modernism and the Harlem
> Renaissance (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 85.
> 8! . Alain Locke, “Enter the New Negro.” Survey Graphic. Special Issue: Harlem,
> Mecca of the New Negro (March 1925): 631–634 (633).
> 9! . Leonard Harris, “Alain L. Locke,” in A Companion to Pragmatism, ed. John R.
> Shook and Joseph Margolis (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), ch. 7, pp. 87–93 (91).
> ! 26                                                   Studies in Bahá’í Philosophy
> 
> agenda with central issues in the modern history of philosophy.”10 Locke
> has been called “the father of multiculturalism.”11
> Alain Locke was a pragmatist philosopher. Of the pragmatists, John
> Dewey most influenced democratic theory from the pragmatist
> perspective. But the pragmatist whom Locke admired most was likely
> Franz Boas, whom Locke called a “major prophet of democracy.”12
> Locke is credited with having first coined the term, “critical pragmatism.”
> “The actual phrase, ‘critical pragmatism’,” writes Alison Kadlec,
> “appears at least as early as 1935 in Alain Locke’s pragmatic theory of
> valuation. In the context of Locke’s work, the idea of a critical
> pragmatism was supposed to undergird the development of cultural
> pluralism.”13 Leonard Harris, arguably the foremost scholar on Alain
> Locke, notes:
> 
> Critical pragmatism was created by Locke and has its religious
> sensibilities in a place other than Cornel West’s prophetic pragmatism
> and Dewey and James’ American forms of Christianity. Locke was
> affiliated with the B’hai faith [sic: Bahá’í Faith] and thereby a radical
> cultural pluralist and influenced by the B’hai [sic: Bahá’í] demand, as
> a tenet of religious faith, that racism is a sin.14
> 
> ! . Leonard Harris, “The Horror of Tradition or How to Burn Babylon and Build
> Benin While Reading A Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note.” Philosophical
> Forum 24, nos. 1–3 (Fall–Spring 1992–93): 94–119. Reprinted in African-American
> Perspectives and Philosophical Traditions, ed. John P. Pittman and Marx W.
> Wartofsky (New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 94–119 [112].
> ! . Charles Molesworth, “Alain Locke and Walt Whitman: Manifestos and
> National Identity,” in The Critical Pragmatism of Alain Locke: A Reader on Value
> Theory, Aesthetics, Community, Culture, Race, and Education, ed. Leonard Harris
> (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), p. 176.
> ! . Alain Locke, “Major Prophet of Democracy” (Review of Race and Democratic
> Society by Franz Boas), Journal of Negro Education 15, no. 2 (Spring 1946): 191–92.
> See also Mark Helbling, “Feeling Universality and Thinking Particularistically: Alain
> Locke, Franz Boas, Melville Herkskovits, and the Harlem Renaissance,” Prospects 19
> (1994): 289–314.
> ! . Alison Kadlec, “Reconstructing Dewey: The Philosophy of Critical
> Pragmatism,” Polity 38, no. 4 (Oct. 2006): 519–42 (520, n. 3).
> ! . Leonard Harris, Review of Pragmatism and the Problem of Race, Bill E.
> Lawson and Donald F. Koch, eds. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004),
> Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 41, no. 2 (Spring, 2005): 440–43 [442].
> Alain Locke’s Philosophy of Democracy                                           2! 7
> 
> Cornel West’s “prophetic pragmatism” is said to have been inspired by
> “his trinity of Christ, Marx, and Dewey.”15 As the Cornel West of the Jim
> Crow era, Locke’s own “critical pragmatism” drew its inspiration from
> the trinity of Baha’u’llah, Royce, and Boas. One can say that Locke has
> synergized faith (Baha’u’llah) and philosophy (Royce), reinforced by
> scientific anthropology (Boas). While all but Josiah Royce among the
> first white pragmatists had turned a blind eye to race, Locke would agree
> with Cornel West in characterizing American pragmatism as “unique as a
> philosophical tradition in the modern world in its preoccupation or near
> obsession with the meaning and value of democracy.”16 (Here,
> pragmatism is Cornel West’s synecdoche for philosopher John Dewey.)
> Although West, in The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of
> Pragmatism (1989), had excluded him, Locke has finally entered the
> canon of American philosophy and taken his rightful place in the
> philosophical pantheon with the appearance of John Stuhr’s Pragmatism
> and Classical American Philosophy (2000).17
> Locke anchored philosophy in human values and formulated his own
> theory of relativity by way of a naturalized epistemology of human
> values. One of Locke’s lectures captures the essence of his philosophy by
> its very title: “Cultural Pluralism: A New Americanism.”18 Locke’s
> integrationism was not assimilationism. Locke held to the Bahá’í
> 
> ! . Charles W. Mills, “Prophetic Pragmatism as a Political Philosophy,” in Cornel
> West: A Critical Reader, ed. by George Yancy (Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell,
> 2001), p. 196, quoting Lewis R. Gordon, “Black Intellectuals and Academic
> Activism: Cornel West’s ‘Dilemmas of the Black Intellectual’,” in idem, Her
> Majesty’s Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age (Lanham,
> MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), p. 195.
> ! . Qtd. in Mills, “Prophetic Pragmatism,” p. 197.
> ! . John J. Stuhr, ed., Pragmatism and Classical American Philosophy: Essential
> Readings and Interpretive Essays, 2nd edn. (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002).
> ! . Alain Locke Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (hereafter, “MSRC”),
> Howard University, Box 164-167, Folder 4: 1950-1953 (Programs on which Locke’s
> Name Appears). Sponsored by the Department of Philosophy, Locke’s lecture,
> presented on November 8, 1950, was held in the faculty lounge, Douglass Hall,
> Howard University.
> ! 28                                                      Studies in Bahá’í Philosophy
> 
> principle of “unity in diversity,”19 which he reformulated as “unity
> through diversity.” 20
> Seeing America as “a unique social experiment,” Locke’s larger goal
> was to “Americanize Americans,”21 with the simple yet profound message
> that equality benefits everyone, and that democracy itself is at stake.
> Locke’s cosmopolitan paradigm of unity is a “theoretical and praxical
> transformation of classical American pragmatism.”22 According to Judith
> Green, Locke had precociously conceptualized “deep democracy” as
> “cosmopolitan unity amidst valued diversity.”23 In raising democracy to a
> new level of consciousness, Locke internationalized the race issue,
> making the crucial connection between American race relations and
> international relations. Racial justice, he predicted, would serve as a
> social catalyst of world peace.
> Locke was trained as a philosopher at Harvard University. The primary
> branch of philosophy that Locke studied was the theory of values.
> Locke’s dissertation was The Problem of Classification in Theory of
> Value: or an Outline of a Genetic System of Values.24 Harvard University
> conferred Locke’s Ph.D. on 25 February 1918, after he had successfully
> defended his dissertation. 25 That same year, he adopted the Bahá’í Faith,
> 
> ! . The Bahá’í Faith’s “watchword is unity in diversity.” Shoghi Effendi, The
> World Order of Bahá’u’lláh (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1991), p. 42.
> ! . Alain Locke, “Unity through Diversity: A Bahá’í Principle,” in The Bahá’í
> World: A Biennial International Record, Volume IV, 1930–1932 (Wilmette: Bahá’í
> Publishing Trust, 1933) pp. 372–74. Reprint (Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust,
> 1980). Reprinted again in Locke, The Philosophy of Alain Locke: Harlem
> Renaissance and Beyond, ed. Leonard Harris (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
> 1989), pp. 133–38 [above quote from p. 137]. Harris’ reference on p. 133 n. should be
> emended to read, “Volume IV, 1930–1932” (not “V, 1932–1934”).
> ! . Alain Locke Papers, MSRC, Box 164-124, Folder 15 (“The Preservation of the
> Democratic Ideal”), p. 5.
> ! . Segun Gbadegesin, “Values, Imperatives, and the Imperative of Democratic
> Values,” in Leonard Harris, ed., The Critical Pragmatism of Alain Locke: A Reader on
> Value Theory, Aesthetics, Community, Culture, Race, and Education (Lanham, MD:
> Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), p. 288.
> ! . Judith Green, “Cosmopolitan Unity Amidst Valued Diversity: Alain Locke’s
> Vision of Deeply Democratic Transformation,” in Deep Democracy: Community,
> Diversity, and Transformation (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), p. 96.
> ! . Alain Leroy Locke, The Problem of Classification in the Theory of Value: or an
> Outline of a Genetic System of Values (Ph.D. dissertation: Harvard University, 1918).
> ! . Alain Locke Papers, MSRC, Box 164-228, P Oversize (Diploma awarded by
> Harvard University 25 Feb. 1918).
> Alain Locke’s Philosophy of Democracy                                           2! 9
> 
> as documented and discussed in Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy.26
> Locke, moreover, established the study of philosophy at Howard
> University – an institution of higher learning aptly characterized as the
> equivalent to Harvard University among traditionally black universities.
> Leonard Harris credits Alain Locke for having contributed a “unique
> version of pragmatism,” which “promotes a deep-seated commitment to
> transforming a world” through “intellectual engagement” and “aesthetic
> pluralism whereby beauty-making properties are considered subject to
> transvaluation.”27 And further:
> 
> Locke’s theory of valuation, his advocacy aesthetics, his insistence
> on moral imperatives as a necessary condition for the possibility of a
> moral community, his pedagogy of discipline and cultural integration,
> and his views of community as an evolving democratic experiment,
> all form a unique chapter of American pragmatism.28
> 
> Beyond his philosophy of values, Locke also developed a
> comprehensive theory of democracy. By devoting “Chapter Ten” to
> “Theorizing Democracy” in their definitive biography of Locke, Leonard
> Harris and Charles Molesworth identify Locke’s philosophy of
> democracy as his greatest contribution as a philosopher, which has yet to
> be fully understood and appreciated: “Locke’s views on democracy
> deserve fuller study than they have received.”29
> In the fall of 1947, Locke taught a course on the “Philosophy of
> Democracy”30 at Howard University, where he was a distinguished
> professor for over forty years. While the notes that have survived are
> fragmentary at best, it is now possible to reconstruct Locke’s philosophy
> of democracy in its broad conceptual outlines. In an unpublished
> typescript, Locke sets forth his definition of democracy as follows:
> 
> In a democracy built out of many peoples by this great historical
> process of immigration, the only safe principle of democracy is that
> 
> ! . Christopher Buck, Alain Locke: Faith and Philosophy (Los Angeles: Kalimat
> Press, 2005), “Chapter Four: Conversion,” pp. 58–67.
> ! . Leonard Harris, “Alain L. Locke,” in A Companion to Pragmatism, p. 88. See
> also idem, “Alain L. Locke, 1885–1954,” in The Blackwell Guide to American
> Philosophy, ed. Armen T. Marsoobian and John Ryder (Blackwell, 2004), ch. 17, pp.
> 263–70.
> ! . Harris, “Alain L. Locke,” in A Companion to Pragmatism, pp. 91–92.
> ! . Harris & Molesworth, “Chapter Ten: Theorizing Democracy,” Alain L. Locke:
> Biography of a Philosopher, pp. 328–57 (329).
> ! . Alain Locke Papers, MSRC, Box 164-112, Folder 6: “Concept of Democracy.”
> Outline of lecture for Philosophy of Democracy course. 10 Dec. 1947.
> ! 30                                                   Studies in Bahá’í Philosophy
> 
> embodied in this conception of democracy: – A democracy is a
> system of government and corporate living in which there is no
> distinction between minority and majority rights; and under which
> life is safe and equally abundant for all minorities. In historical
> perspective[,] this is really the distinctive foundation[al] principle of
> American life. Our task today is to make America truly and
> consistently American.31
> 
> Locke forged a vital linkage between American democracy and world
> democracy. In his previously unpublished Bahá’í essay, “The Gospel for
> the Twentieth Century” (2005), Locke wrote that “[t]he gospel for the
> Twentieth Century” and its message of “social salvation” must first
> address “[t]he fundamental problems of current America,” which are
> “materiality and prejudice.”32 The sad irony is that America – “the land
> that is nearest to material democracy” – happens to be the land that “is
> furthest away from spiritual democracy.”33
> Democracy is a process of progressive equalizing. It is a matter of
> degree. For Locke, democracy was a much broader concept than its
> narrow political definition. Locke proposed a multidimensional model of
> democracy, against which he measured America’s fidelity to its
> democratic ideal. His model ranged from concepts of “local democracy”
> all the way up to “world democracy.” In the notes on his lecture,
> “Concept of Democracy,” delivered on 10 Dec. 1947, Locke spoke of
> how the “[i]dea of democracy has evolved.” Locke’s dimensional model
> of democracy is not only typological, but evolutionary as well. In a
> survey of his writings, one may begin to typologize or systematize
> Locke’s thinking on democracy. These are some of the various
> dimensions of democracy that Locke spoke and wrote about:
> 
> (1) Local Democracy;
> (2) Moral Democracy;
> (3) Political Democracy;
> (4) Economic Democracy;
> (5) Cultural Democracy;
> (6) Racial Democracy;
> (7) Social Democracy;
> (8) Spiritual Democracy;
> 
> ! . Alain Locke Papers, MSRC, Box 164-141, Folder 14 ([Notes] Democracy –
> political, economic, cultural).
> ! . Alain Locke, “The Gospel for the Twentieth Century,” in idem, “Alain Locke in
> His Own Words: Three Essays.” World Order 36, no. 3 (2005): 39–42 [39–40].
> (Previously unpublished essays, introduced by Christopher Buck and co-edited with
> Betty Fisher.)
> ! . Alain Locke, “The Gospel for the Twentieth Century,” p. 42.
> Alain Locke’s Philosophy of Democracy                                         3! 1
> 
> (9) World Democracy.
> 
> Locke’s philosophy of democracy was both historical and
> phenomenological. It may aptly be characterized as a “grand theory” of
> democracy – anchored in history, grounded in philosophy, and validated
> by personal experience. Locke’s philosophy of democracy harks back to
> Athens, arcs through history, and telescopes into the future. His point of
> departure was, of course, the historical development or evolution of
> democracy. The first five dimensions may be roughly characterized as
> “Historical Democracy,” as they are sequenced in Locke’s paradigm of
> social evolution. In his farewell address at Talladega College (1941),
> Locke spoke of local, moral, political, economic, and cultural stages of
> democracy. The present writer published the speech in 2005. 34 Locke
> begins his speech by saying:
> 
> And now, I should like to talk about something that we all take for
> granted – these are things we know least about. The words most
> frequently used are words understood least[.] – Democracy is one of
> those words. Thinking Negroes, of course, know much about what
> democracy is not, and have a more workable conception of what
> democracy truly means than those who have just enough to be
> content with or those to whom it is just a commonplace concept and
> way of life. Democracy, of course, is one of the basic human ideals,
> but as an ideal of human association it is something quite superior to
> any outward institution or any particular society; therefore, not only
> is government too narrow to express democracy, but government
> from time to time must grow to realize democracy.35
> 
> Not only is government too narrow a concept of democracy, but
> democracy started out historically as a narrow concept as well.
> Local Democracy: The historical origins of democracy hark back to
> Athens, as one would expect. And while it is a breakthrough concept of
> the profoundest historical moment, Locke emphasizes its limitations:
> 
> It may be a little daring in the time we have at our disposal, but let
> us put on seven-league boots and trace democracy – one of the great
> social concepts. Both in concept and in practice democracy began in
> Greece – in the Greek city[-]state. In its day it was a great
> achievement, but in that day democracy was a concept of local
> 
> ! . Alain Locke, “Five Phases of Democracy: Farewell Address at Talladega
> College,” in idem, “Alain Locke in His Own Words: Three Essays.” World Order 36,
> no. 3 (2005): 45–48.
> ! . Alain Locke Papers, MSRC, Box 164-113, Folder 4 ([re: democracy] Departure
> speech to students at Talladega College, 1941), p. 1.
> ! 32                                                Studies in Bahá’í Philosophy
> 
> citizenship. Our nearest approach to it is the kind of fellowship we
> find in college fraternities and sororities in which the bonds are of
> “like-mindedness” excluding others. The rim of the Greek concept of
> democracy was the barbarian: it was then merely the principle of
> fraternity within a narrow, limited circle. There was a dignity
> accorded to each member on the basis of membership in the group. It
> excluded foreigners, slaves and women. This concept carried over
> into the Roman empire.36
> 
> In staging the evolution of democracy, the next developmental phase in
> the evolution of democracy, accordingly, was Christianity.
> Moral Democracy: Christianity, in Locke’s estimate of it, provided
> the ideal basis for a moral democracy. Ideally universal, and socially so in
> its pristine beginnings, over time Christianity became circumscribed, as
> Locke, true to his critical temper, points out:
> 
> Christianity was responsible for the introduction of the next great
> revision in the concept of democracy. We owe to Christianity one of
> the great basic ideals of democracy – the ideal of the moral equality
> of human beings. The Christian ideal of democracy was in its initial
> stages more democratic than it subsequently became. It always held
> on to the essential ideal of moral equality of man within the limits of
> organized Christianity – anybody else was a potential member only
> as he became converted. Christianity was thus a crusading ideal in
> bringing humanity into wider association. But the Christian church
> was a political institution and in making compromises often failed in
> bringing about real human equality.37
> 
> Notwithstanding its contribution to the evolution of democracy by
> promoting “the ideal of the moral equality of human beings,” Christianity
> later failed to live up to its own ideals.
> Political Democracy: Locke explains the profound influence of the
> French Revolution on the establishment of American democracy by the
> Founding Fathers. In one speech, Locke states:
> 
> Then later came that political and secular strand of colonial
> experience, which out of the fight against tyranny and taxation grew
> into the issue of political freedom and the liberty of self-government.
> But even then, when these developments had been fought for and
> won, and were being institutionalized, it took another strain of radical
> thinking imported from Revolutionary France to consolidate this into
> a formally democratic doctrine, the fundamental historical creed of
> 
> !36. Ibid., pp. 1–2.
> !37. Ibid., p. 2.
> Alain Locke’s Philosophy of Democracy                                            3! 3
> 
> American democracy that we know so well and rightly treasure so
> highly.38
> It was the political philosophy of the French that most impressed
> Thomas Jefferson, and profoundly influenced the development of
> democracy in America:
> The third great step in democracy came from [P]rotestant lands and
> people who evolved the ideal of political equality: (1) equality before
> the law; (2) political citizenship. This political democracy pivoted
> on individualism, and the freedom of the individual in terms of what
> we know as the fundamental rights of man. It found its best
> expression in the historic formula of “Liberty, equality and
> fraternity.” 39
> 
> Locke appreciated the Bill of Rights and subsequent Amendments as
> milestones in the evolution of American democracy. But the political
> system – not to mention the social manifestations of democracy – were
> still far from perfect:
> 
> In terms of this ideology our country’s government was founded.
> But for generations after many of the fundamentals of our democracy
> were pious objectives, not fully expressed in practice. In the
> perspective of democracy’s long evolution, we must regard our
> country’s history as a progressive process of democratization, not yet
> fully achieved, but certainly progressing importantly in terms of the
> [T]hirteenth, [F]ourteenth and F]ifteenth [A]mendments, and the
> amendment extending the right of franchise to women. It is still
> imperfect.40
> The perfection of democracy requires a “democratic spirit,”
> without which democracy, by legislation standing alone, cannot
> succeed: “[I]f we are going to have effective democracy in America
> we must have the democratic spirit as well as the democratic
> tradition, we must have more social democracy and more economic
> democracy in order to have or keep political democracy.”41
> 
> This statement reveals the cornerstone of Locke’s philosophy of
> democracy: that democratic ideals must be complemented by democratic
> 
> ! . Alain Locke Papers, MSRC, Box 164-112, Folder 18 (“Creative Democracy”),
> p. 2.
> ! . Alain Locke Papers, MSRC, Box 164-113, Folder 4 ([re: democracy] Departure
> speech to students at Talladega College, 1941), p. 2.
> ! . Ibid., pp. 2–3.
> ! . Alain Locke Papers, MSRC, Box 164-124, Folder 15 (“The Preservation of the
> Democratic Ideal”), p. 5.
> ! 34                                                 Studies in Bahá’í Philosophy
> 
> attitudes. In other words, the democratic spirit is what really animates a
> democracy, not simply its institutions and legal safeguards. Consistent
> with this analysis is Locke’s stage-wise progression from political to
> economic democracy, in which human values (on which political
> democracy is ostensibly based) can and must be linked to economic
> values.
> Economic Democracy: Although Locke was no economist, he clearly
> understood that reality. It was totally obvious in the ghettoes. Economic
> reform was a necessary development of democracy:
> 
> The fourth crucial stage in the enlargement of democracy began, I
> think, with the income tax amendment. Woodrow Wilson tried to put
> into operation an extension of democracy which may well have been
> seriously hindered by World War number one. The income tax
> [A]mendment was an initial step in social [economic] democracy as
> distinguished from the purely political, – a step toward economic
> equality through the partial appropriation of surplus wealth for the
> benefit of the commonwealth.
> In this country for many generations we thought we had economic
> equality. What we really had was a frontier expansion which
> developed such surpluses and offered such practical equality of
> opportunity as to give us the illusion of economic equality. We later
> learned that we did not have economic democracy, and that in order
> to have this, we must have guaranteed to all citizens certain minimal
> standards of living and the right to earn a living. Faced with the crisis
> of unemployment, the New Deal has been confronted with the
> problem of inaugurating some of these beginnings of economic
> democracy and of constitutionally implementing a larger measure of
> social justice. The whole program of what is now called [S]ocial
> [S]ecurity is directed toward such objectives. 42
> 
> Locke spoke of “the two basic economic roots of war – unequal access
> to markets and sources of raw materials and widespread differentials of
> living standards and economic security.”43 Locke taught that political
> freedom ought to lead to economic equality. What Locke means by
> economic democracy is an “equitable distribution of wealth.” 44
> Redistribution of surplus wealth is part and parcel of that process. But
> 
> ! . Alain Locke Papers, MSRC, Box 164-113, Folder 4 ([re: democracy] Departure
> speech to students at Talladega College, 1941), pp. 3–4.
> ! . Alain Locke, “Democracy Faces a World Order,” Harvard Educational Review
> 12, no. 2 (March 1942): 124.
> ! . Alain Locke Papers, MSRC, Box 164-112, Folder 6 (“Concept of
> Democracy”). Outline of lecture for Philosophy of Democracy course. 10 Dec. 1947,
> p. 1.
> Alain Locke’s Philosophy of Democracy                                      3! 5
> 
> what about the connection between economic democracy and race? In the
> conclusion of an unpublished essay, “Peace Between Black and White in
> the United States,” Locke wrote:
> 
> We used to say that Christianity and democracy were both at stake
> in the equitable solution of the race question. They were; but they
> were abstract ideals that did not bleed when injured. Now we think
> with more realistic logic, perhaps, that economic justice cannot stand
> on one foot; and economic reconstruction is the dominant demand of
> the present-day American scene.45
> 
> Cultural Democracy: Locke’s next form of democracy is clear
> enough, although his name for it (“cultural democracy”) is not so much
> “cultural” as it is “intercommunal.” Locke sums up the problem he is
> addressing as follows: “Less acute than race prejudice, but by no means
> unrelated to it, is the social bias and discrimination underlying the
> problem of cultural minorities. [. . .] Cultural bias, like that directed
> against the Mexican, Orientals, the Jew, the American Indian, often
> intensifies into racial prejudice.”46 As an antidote to this social ill, Locke
> advocates cultural pluralism, and rejects “Americanization,” whether
> forced or coerced by social pressures. Think of “culture” in this context as
> analogous to the idea of a “corporate culture.” As Locke explains:
> 
> A fifth phase of democracy, even if the preceding four are realized,
> still remains to be achieved in order to have a fully balanced society.
> The present crisis forces us to realize that without this also
> democracy may go into total eclipse. This fifth phase is the struggle
> for cultural democracy, and rests on the concept of the right of
> difference, – that is, the guarantee of the rights of minorities. Again in
> the colonial days, we achieved the basic ideals of this crucial aspect
> of democracy, but scarcely realized them in fact. Today we have the
> same problems of the freedom of speech, worship and conscience,
> but in a complex modern situation these things are even more
> difficult to work out.
> One of our greatest problems then today is a real democratic
> reciprocity for minorities of all sorts, both as over against the so-
> called majority and among themselves. These contemporary
> problems of democracy can be vividly sensed if we realize that the
> race question is at the very heart of this struggle for cultural
> democracy. Its solution lies beyond even the realization of political
> 
> ! . Alain Locke Papers, MSRC, Box 164-123: Folder 19 (“Peace between Black
> and White in the United States”).
> ! . Alain Locke, World View on Race and Democracy: A Study Guide in Human
> Group Relations (Chicago: American Library Association, 1943), p. 5.
> ! 36                                                 Studies in Bahá’í Philosophy
> 
> and economic democracy, although of course that solution can only
> be reached when we no longer have extreme political inequality and
> extreme economic inequality.47
> 
> This is where the Harlem Renaissance fits in. During its heyday, and
> throughout the post-Renaissance period, Locke expressed the hope that
> “our writers and artists” would achieve a “victory” through “a
> psychological conquest of racism, prejudice and cultural intolerance.”48
> His race loyalty was the gold vein in a rock of solidarity with the rest of
> humanity. As one scholar observes: “Locke was pro-human rather than
> pro-negro.”49 Of course, he was both. Alain Locke was both a “race man”
> and an integrationist. The role of culture in a “cultural democracy” is that
> of enrichment in full representation:
> 
> Instead of saying, as was said for so long, that we should recognize
> the Negro because he has been neglected and needs recognition,
> recent American literature, – and for that matter, American art
> generally – has come forward, at least in its more creative talents,
> with a very new and democratic formula: We will recognize Negro
> materials because they are intrinsically interesting and because the
> national culture needs them in the picture to be truly representative. 50
> 
> ! . Alain Locke Papers, MSRC, Box 164-113, Folder 4 ([re: democracy] Departure
> speech to students at Talladega College, 1941), pp. 4–5.
> ! . Alain Locke, “Reason and Race,” in Stewart, The Critical Temper of Alain
> Locke, p. 320.
> ! . Yvonne Ochillo, “The Race-Consciousness of Alain Locke.” Phylon 47, no. 3
> (1986): 173–81 (176).
> ! . Alain Locke, “The Negro Minority in American Literature,” in The Works of
> Alain Locke, edited by Charles Molesworth (New York and Oxford: Oxford Univ.
> Press, 2012), pp. 83–88 [87].
> Alain Locke’s Philosophy of Democracy                                               3! 7
> 
> Racial Democracy: Alain Locke was a precursor to Dr. Martin Luther
> King, Jr. “[T]he race question,” wrote Locke in 1949, “has become the
> number one problem of the world.” 51 The next statement follows from the
> first: “Race,” Locke states, “really is a dominant issue of our thinking
> about democracy[.]”52 In his small book, World View on Race and
> Democracy: A Study Guide in Human Group Relations, Locke states this
> another way: “Of all the barriers limiting democracy, color is the greatest,
> whether viewed from a standpoint of national or world democracy.”53
> Locke sees this as part of “total democracy.”54
> Prophetically, Locke forged a linkage between racism as an American
> problem and racism as a world problem, as he explicitly states: “Race as a
> symbol of misunderstanding has become fully the great tragedy of our
> time, both nationally and internationally.”55 Race is the crux, the litmus
> test, the hinge on which the entire project of democracy hangs. In a
> previously unpublished report on racism, Locke writes:
> 
> The American race problem may eventually become just a phase
> and segment of the world relationship of races, and in slight degree it
> is already in process of becoming so. Historically, and in the general
> American thought of it, whether among the Negro minority or the
> white majority, it is thought of as peculiarly and exclusively a
> national problem. In some respects, its situations are relatively
> unique. [. . .] So, as between the white and the black peoples, the
> American situation is the acid test of the whole problem; and will be
> crucial in its outcome for the rest of the world. This makes America,
> in the judgment of many, the world’s laboratory for the progressive
> solution of this great problem of social adjustment.56
> 
> Locke takes Christianity to task for what today is called self-
> 
> ! . Alain Locke, “Dawn Patrol: A Review of the Literature of the Negro for 1948,”
> Phylon 10, nos. 1–2 (1949): 5–14; 167–72. Reprinted in Jeffrey C. Stewart, The
> Critical Temper of Alain Locke: A Selection of His Essays on Art and Culture (New
> York and London: Garland, 1983), pp. 337–49 [337].
> ! . Alain Locke, “Reason and Race,” in Stewart, The Critical Temper of Alain
> Locke, p. 325.
> ! . Alain Locke, World View on Race and Democracy, p. 1.
> ! . Ibid., p. 2, citing Howard H. Brinton (no reference given).
> ! . Alain Locke, “A Critical Retrospect of the Literature of the Negro for 1947,”
> Phylon 9, no. 1 (1948): 3–12. Reprinted in Stewart, The Critical Temper of Alain
> Locke: A Selection of His Essays on Art and Culture, pp. 329–36 [329].
> ! . Alain Locke, “[Through Mrs. Ruth Cranston] Report on The Race Problem in
> the American Area.” Alain Locke Papers, MSRC. Box 164-43, Folder 3 (Writings by
> Locke – Notes[:] Christianity, spirituality, religion.), p. 1.
> ! 38                                                Studies in Bahá’í Philosophy
> 
> segregation: “It is a sad irony,” Alain Locke wrote, “that the social
> institution most committed and potentially most capable of implementing
> social democracy should actually be the weakest and most inconsistent,
> organized religion.”57 Particularly egregious, in Locke’s view, is what
> today is termed “self-segregation”: “Of all the segregated bodies, the
> racially separate church is the saddest and most obviously self-
> contradicting. The separate Negro church, organized in self-defensive
> protest, is nonetheless just as anaomolous [sic], though perhaps, more
> pardonably so.”58 Locke’s remark presaged those of the Rev. Billy
> Graham and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., both of whom later
> observed that Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America.
> Social Democracy: In “Reason and Race” (1947), Locke underscores
> “the fact that the contemporary world situation clearly indicates that
> social democracy is the only safe choice for the survival of Western and
> Christian civilization.”59 In the Seventeenth Annual Convention and
> Bahá’í Congress (5 July 1925), Locke was reported to have said, in gist:
> 
> Dr. Alain LeRoy Locke of Washington, D.C., delivered a polished
> address, portraying the great part which America can play in the
> establishment of world peace, if alive to its opportunity. The working
> out of social democracy can be accomplished here. To this end we
> should not think in little arcs of experience, but in the big,
> comprehensive way. Let our country reform its own heart and life.
> Needed reforms cannot be worked out by the action of any one
> group, but a fine sense of cooperation must secure universal
> fellowship. He praised Green Acre, which he declared to be an oasis
> in the desert of materiality. He urged all who were favored by this
> glorious experience to carry forth its glorious message and thus
> 
> ! . Alain Locke Papers, MSRC, Box 164-105, Folder 34 (“American Education’s
> Latest Task: Teaching Democracy.” [incomplete]), p. 8.
> ! . Ibid.
> ! . Alain Locke, “Reason and Race,” in Stewart, The Critical Temper of Alain
> Locke, p. 327.
> Alain Locke’s Philosophy of Democracy                                             3! 9
> 
> awaken humanity. In final analysis, peace cannot exist anywhere
> without existing everywhere.60
> 
> The very integrity of democracy itself is put to test by the state of its
> race relations.
> Spiritual Democracy: Democracy is more than a political system. It is
> a state of mind, a province of the heart, a radiation of attitudes, from
> which all actions flow. Spiritual democracy is the democracy of the heart.
> It’s a place, a state of mind that legislation cannot reach. It is the
> interiority of democracy that Locke emphasized:
> 
> Constitutional guarantees, legal and civil rights, political
> machinery of democratic action and control are, of course, the
> skeleton foundation of democracy, but you and I know that attitudes
> are the flesh and blood of democracy, and that without their vital
> reenforcement [sic] democracy is really moribund or dead. That is
> my reason for thinking that in any democracy, ours included, the
> crucial issue, the test touchstone of democracy is minority status,
> minority protection, minority rights.61
> 
> During World War II, Locke wrote of the potential role that religion
> could play in promoting democracy on a world scale:
> 
> The world crisis has led to the reexamination of the traditional
> doctrines of human equality and brotherhood among the leading
> thinkers of the Christian churches. As a result, a fresh crusade for
> aligning organized religion with the constructive forces of world
> democracy has come to the vanguard of liberal religious thought and
> action. Both intercultural, intersectarian and interfaith movements
> have grown out of these considerations.62
> In attempting to remold the American temperament, Alain Locke led a
> 
> ! . “The Seventeenth Annual Convention and Baha’i Congress,” Baha’i News
> Letter, No. 6 (1925): 3. Here, Locke’s reference to “Green Acre” is the Green Acre
> Baha’i School, Retreat, and Conference Center in Eliot, Maine, where, in 1925,
> Baha’i delegates assembled primarily to elect the “National Spiritual Assembly of the
> Baha’is of the United States and Canada” — a council of nine Baha’i representatives
> charged with overseeing the affairs of the American and Canadian Baha’i community
> at that time. (The National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Canada was
> separately elected beginning in 1948, and was legally incorporated by an Act of
> Parliament in 1949, while The National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the
> United States would be elected annually thereafter.)
> ! . Alain Locke Papers, MSRC, Box 164-124, Folder 15 (“The Preservation of the
> Democratic Ideal”), pp. 1–2.
> ! . Alain Locke, World View on Race and Democracy, p. 18.
> ! 40                                                    Studies in Bahá’í Philosophy
> 
> civil rights movement of the American spirit. Of particular importance are
> Locke’s views on “spiritual democracy” – an aspect of Locke’s thought
> that, so far, has received scant attention. In an evidently unpublished
> Bahá’í essay (2005), Locke expresses his conviction that “Spiritual
> Democracy” is the “largest” dimension of democracy as a whole “and
> most inner meaning.” In his essay, “The Gospel for the Twentieth
> Century,” Locke states:
> 
> The gospel for the Twentieth Century rises out of the heart of its
> greatest problems [. . .] Much has been accomplished in the name of
> Democracy, but Spiritual Democracy, its largest and most inner
> meaning, is so below our common horizons. [. . .] [T]he land that is
> nearest to material democracy is furthest away from spiritual
> democracy [. . .] The word of God is still insistent, [. . .] and we have
> [. . .] Bahá’u’lláh’s “one great trumpet-call to humanity”: “That all
> nations shall become one in faith, and all men as brothers; that the
> bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be
> strengthened; that diversity of religion should cease, and differences
> of race be annulled [. . .] These strifes and this bloodshed and discord
> must cease, and all men be as one kindred and family.[”]63
> 
> The spirit of democracy is best realized in a spirit of confraternity of
> the races, as a basis for the social solidarity of society as a whole. In The
> Negro in America (1933), Locke promoted ideal race relations by
> emphasizing the mutual benefits that true reciprocity would foster:
> 
> If they will but see it, because of their complementary qualities, the
> two racial groups have great spiritual need, one of the other. It would
> truly be significant in the history of human culture, if two races so
> diverse should so happily collaborate, and the one return for the gift
> of a great civilization the reciprocal gift of the spiritual cross-
> fertilization of a great and distinctive national culture.64
> 
> ! . Baha’u’llah, quoted in Locke, “Gospel for the Twentieth Century,” p. 42,
> indirectly citing J. E. Esslemont, Baha’u’llah and the New Era: An Introduction to the
> Baha’i Faith, 5th rev. ed. (Wilmette, IL: Baha’i Publishing Trust, 1980, 1998
> printing), pp. 39–40. This oft-quoted statement was first published by Edward
> Granville Browne, Sir Thomas Adams Professor of Arabic, Cambridge University,
> interview with Baha’u’llah, Acre, Palestine, on Wednesday, April 16, 1890, in
> ‘Abdu’-Baha, A Traveller’s Narrative Written to Illustrate the Episode of the Bab, ed.
> and trans. Browne, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1891) pp. xxxix–xl.
> ! . Alain Locke, The Negro in America (Chicago: American Library Association,
> 1933), p. 50.
> Alain Locke’s Philosophy of Democracy                                             4! 1
> 
> World democracy: Democracy, ideally, is collective self-destiny. On a
> world scale, democracy is global self-governance. Locke’s universalism
> is most evident in his discussion of world democracy, for which
> “internationalism” appears to be a synonym. World democracy is really
> the logical and pragmatic expansion of the democratic principle, from a
> national to truly international level. “[W]orld democracy,” writes Locke,
> “presupposes the recognition of the essential equality of all peoples and
> the potential parity of all cultures.”65 On a radio program, “Woman’s Page
> of the Air,” with Adelaide Hawley, broadcast 6 August 1944 while World
> War II was at its height, Locke said: “Just as the foundation of democracy
> as a national principle made necessary the declaration of the basic
> equality of persons, so the founding of international democracy must
> guarantee the basic equality of human groups.”66
> Accordingly, Locke noted, “we must find common human
> denominators of liberty, equality, and fraternity for humanity at large.”67
> In the quest to universalize democracy, “color becomes the acid test of
> our fundamental honesty in putting into practice the democracy we
> preach.”68
> Exploring the relationship between America and world democracy,
> Locke postulated that “World leadership [. . .] must be moral leadership in
> democratic concert with humanity at large.”69 In so doing, America must
> perforce “abandon racial and cultural prejudice.” 70 “A world
> democracy,” wrote Locke, “cannot possibly tolerate what a national
> democracy has countenanced too long.”71 This is an unmistakable
> allusion to America and racism.
> Conclusions: Alain Locke’s philosophy of democracy is unfinished,
> for the simple reason that he did not systematize it, much less apply it.
> Superficially, if one accepts the multidimensional nature of Locke's
> theory of democracy, it appears, at best, to be descriptive. Yet there is a
> prescriptive element as well. This aspect of Locke’s thinking has yet to be
> fully developed. If one reads his writings closely, the prescriptive element
> falls into focus. To sharpen the focus, let us take the following statement
> from “Cultural Relativism and Ideological Peace,” as a point of departure
> 
> !65. Alain Locke, World View on Race and Democracy, p. 14.
> !66. Alain Locke Papers, MSRC, Box 164-105, Folder 33: [re: America’s position in
> world affairs in relation to race.] Speech over station KMYR, Denver. 6 August 1944,
> p. 6.
> ! . Locke, “The Unfinished Business of Democracy,” p. 455.
> ! . Ibid., p. 456.
> ! . Ibid., p. 459.
> ! . Ibid.
> ! . Locke, “Democracy Faces a World Order,” p. 128.
> ! 42                                                  Studies in Bahá’í Philosophy
> 
> for the formulaic prescriptive application of Locke’s theory of democracy
> on a systematic, yet theoretically practical level:
> 
> [T]hree working principles seem to be derivable for a more
> objective and scientific understanding of human cultures and for the
> more reasonable control of their interrelationships. They are:
> 1. The principle of cultural equivalence, under which we would
> more wisely press the search for functional similarities in our
> analyses and comparisons of human cultures . . . . Such functional
> equivalences, which we might term “culture-cognates” or “culture-
> correlates,” discovered underneath deceptive but superficial
> institutional divergence, would provide objective but soundly neutral
> common denominators for intercultural understanding and
> cooperation;
> 2. The principle of cultural reciprocity, which, by a general
> recognition of the reciprocal character of all contacts between
> cultures and of the fact that all modern cultures are highly composite
> ones, would . . . [provide] scientific, point-by-point comparisons with
> their correspondingly limited, specific, and objectively verifiable
> superiorities or inferiorities;
> 3. The principle of limited cultural convertibility, that, since culture
> elements, though widely interchangeable, are so separable, the
> institutional forms from their values and the values from their
> institutional forms, the organic selectivity and assimilative capacity
> of a borrowing culture becomes a limiting criterion for cultural
> exchange.72
> 
> In simpler terms, Locke’s prescriptive paradigm proposes a three-step
> process: (1) Correlate (by a method of formal comparison, identify
> “functional equivalences” as possible “common denominators”); (2)
> Confirm (by objectively making “point-by-point comparisons,” verify the
> reciprocal character of such “culture-correlates,” thereby reaching a
> common understanding); and (3) Convert (by justifying mutual
> acceptance of comparable values, promote intercultural exchange and
> collaboration). The result would be as follows:
> 
> Through functional [1] comparison a much more constructive
> phase of cultural relativism seems to be developing, promising the
> discovery of some less arbitrary and more objective norms. Upon
> 
> ! . Alain Locke, “Cultural Relativism and Ideological Peace,” in The Works of
> Alain Locke, ed. Charles Molesworth (New York and Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press,
> 2012), pp. 548–54 (550–551).
> Alain Locke’s Philosophy of Democracy                                             4! 3
> 
> them, perhaps we can build sounder intercultural [2] understanding
> and promote a more equitable [3] collaboration between cultures.73
> 
> What Locke calls for is “an objective comparative analysis on a world
> scale of our major culture values.”74 This can be done dimension-by-
> dimension – in local, moral, political, economic, cultural, interracial,
> social, spiritual, global, intellectual, natural, practical, and creative
> contexts. Locke’s proposed method has never been rigorously tested. This
> quest for intercultural exchange, recognition and cooperation is part and
> parcel of what Locke called “reciprocity.” In and of itself, reciprocity is
> not a method of conflict resolution per se, but is a means of cultural
> diplomacy that promotes peaceful interchange.
> In fine, Locke’s formula for ideal intercommunal relations (with a
> democracy) intercultural relations (between democracies) is: (1)
> comparison; (2) understanding; (3) collaboration. In a dynamic mode,
> Locke advocates that philosophers (and other leaders of thought)
> compare, understand and collaborate.
> Alain Locke’s philosophy of democracy does not end with his
> dimensional paradigm and comparative method for identifying equivalent
> cross-cultural values and their concomitant moral imperatives. Locke
> famously wrote:
> 
> All philosophies, it seems to me, are in ultimate derivation
> philosophies of life and not of abstract, disembodied “objective”
> reality; products of time, place and situation, and thus systems of
> timed history rather than timeless eternity. . . . In de-throning our
> absolutes, we must take care not to exile our imperatives, for after all,
> we live by them.” 75
> 
> Locke’s Bahá’í-inspired vision incorporates the three “basic corporate
> ideas” of nation, race and religion, of which Locke speaks in his paper,
> “Moral Imperatives for World Order” (1944).76 Alain Locke’s prophetic
> words remain true today: “The moral imperatives of a new world order
> are an internationally limited idea of national sovereignty, a non-
> monopolistic and culturally tolerant concept of race and religious
> 
> !73. Ibid., p. 552 (bracketed numbers and emphasis added).
> !74. Ibid., p. 553.
> !75. Alain Locke, “Values and Imperatives,” in The Works of Alain Locke, pp. 451–
> 64 (451, 452).
> ! . Alain Locke, “The Moral Imperatives for World Order,” Summary of
> Proceedings, Institute of International Relations, Mills College, Oakland, CA, June
> 18–28, 1944, pp. 19–20. Reprinted in Leonard Harris, ed., The Philosophy of Alain
> Locke (Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1989), pp. 143, 151–52.
> ! 44                                                  Studies in Bahá’í Philosophy
> 
> loyalties freed of sectarian bigotry.” In “Pluralism and Intellectual
> Democracy” (1942), Locke wrote that: “The intellectual core of the
> problems of the peace… will be the discovery of the necessary common
> denominators and the basic equivalences involved in a democratic world
> order or democracy on a world scale.”77 A world democracy is a world
> order established on both legal and social foundations that command
> universal assent.
> Locke inwardly felt that what America really needed was to embrace
> Bahá’í principles (and not necessarily the Bahá’í Faith itself). “Dr. Alain
> Locke of Washington, D.C., speaking on the subject, ‘America’s Part in
> World Peace’,” according to a news report, “pointed out the priceless
> value and the great necessity of a good example if America is to perform
> a real service to the world.” Locke proclaimed:
> 
> America’s democracy must begin at home with a spiritual fusion of
> all her constituent peoples in brotherhood, and in an actual mutuality
> of life. Until democracy is worked out in the vital small scale of
> practical human relations, it can never, except as an empty formula,
> prevail on the national or international basis. Until it establishes itself
> in human hearts, it can never institutionally flourish. Moreover,
> America’s reputation and moral influence in the world depends on
> the successful achievement of this vital spiritual democracy within
> the lifetime of the present generation. (Material civilization alone
> does not safeguard the progress of a nation.) Bahá’í Principles and
> the leavening of our national life with their power, is to be regarded
> as the salvation of democracy. In this way only can the fine
> professions of American ideals be realized.78
> 
> Here, Locke says that Baha’i principles can contribute to the full
> realization of the American ideals of democracy, which Locke
> characterizes as the “salvation of democracy.”
> Locke’s philosophy of democracy, in essence, was to “Americanize
> Americans” – to realize America’s ideals in all its dimensions – locally,
> morally, politically, economically, culturally, interracially, socially,
> spiritually, globally, intellectually, naturally, practically, and creatively –
> in order to further democratize democracy. “[B]ut now, it seems to me,”
> Locke told an audience of social workers in 1938, “the soundest, wisest
> 
> ! . Alain Locke. “Pluralism and Intellectual Democracy.” Conference on Science,
> Philosophy and Religion, Second Symposium (New York: Conference on Science,
> Philosophy and Religion, 1942), p. 196–212. Reprinted in The Philosophy of Alain
> Locke, pp. 51–66 (62).
> ! . Harlan Ober, “The Baha’i Congress at Green Acre,” Star of the West 16, no. 1
> (April 1925): 525, on the occasion of the “The Seventeenth Annual Convention and
> Baha’i Congress,” where Alain Locke delivered an invited presentation.
> Alain Locke’s Philosophy of Democracy                                              4! 5
> 
> and most appropriate slogan, – if we must have a slogan [–] is to
> [A]mericanize Americans in their social attitudes and behavior, to
> establish democracy in the heart of our social relations.” 79 Once that
> happens, America could have the requisite moral authority to adopt its
> “world role.”80
> Locke’s philosophy of democracy was his signal contribution to the
> “salvation of democracy,” from race relations to international relations, in
> connecting economic values with human values, and in predicating all
> other dimensions of democracy on the health and vitality of “spiritual
> democracy,” which Baha’i teachings enrich with its wealth of principles
> of unity, 81 from family relations to international relations, and from local
> democracy to world democracy.
> Locke’s philosophy of democracy is no mere taxonomy, for it
> implicates a corresponding teleology. In fine, Locke’s teleology is his
> moral imperative calling on philosophers (and other leaders of thought)
> prove worthy of their philosophical salt by endeavoring to (1) find
> “common denominators” (2) to reach common ground (3) to achieve a
> common purpose, i.e. for the commonweal, or greater good, of humanity.
> Grounded in values, Locke’s philosophy expands notions of democracy
> as a predicate for cosmopolitan social principles. Simply put, Locke’s call
> to compare, concur, and collaborate is another of Locke’s “Moral
> Imperatives for World Order” (to borrow the title of the essay cited in
> Note 76, supra). This process dynamically links “Values and Imperatives”
> (to invoke the title of the essay cited in Note 75, supra), for “for after all,
> we live by them.”
> 
> Independent Scholar (formerly, Michigan State University)
> 
> ! . Alain Locke Papers, MSRC, Box 164-124, Folder 15 (“The Preservation of the
> Democratic Ideal”), p. 5.
> ! . Alain Locke, “Democracy Faces a World Order,” p. 126.
> ! . See Christopher Buck, “Fifty Baha’i Principles of Unity: A Paradigm of Social
> Salvation.” Baha’i Studies Review 18 (2012): 3–44 (published June 2015). http://
> dx.doi.org/10.1386/bsr.18.3/1. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/intellect/bsr/
> 2012/00000018/00000001/art00001. See also http://bahai-library.com/
> buck_unity_social_salvation. Accessed 2 August 2015. For a different configuration,
> see idem, “50 Baha’i Principles of Unity: From Individual to International Relations,”
> BahaiTeachings.org (June 10, 2014), at http://bahaiteachings.org/50-bahai-principles-
> of-unity-from-individual-to-international-relations (accessed 12 Sept. 2015).
>
> — *Alain Locke's Philosophy of Democracy (Used by permission of the curator)*