Beth Kattelman

Kattelman is a freelance writer and holds a Ph.D. in theatre from Ohio State University. In this essay, Kattelman considers how Croly's strong faith in human nature provides one of the main weaknesses in his political argument.

In his book The Promise of American Life, Herbert Croly puts forth a political theory based on a great faith in human nature. While this optimistic outlook is refreshing, it can also be considered somewhat naive, and makes for one of the main weaknesses in his argument. At the time of the book's writing, Croly was very concerned about the imbalance of wealth and power that had come about in American society. He saw this as a major threat to democracy and believed that, unless this imbalance was corrected, American society would suffer and would eventually lose its democratic foundation. As he notes, "A democracy has as...