He fretted especially about the inability of a liberal democratic people to see their own lives and actions as part of a continuum of time, and hence to consider long-term implications of their actions and deeds as part of a long-term human community. While a constitutive feature of an aristocratic age was the pervasive understanding of oneself as defined by one’s place in a generational order, a hallmark of democracy was to “break” that chain in the name and pursuit of liberation of the individual.
