Diversity is often thought to demand the softer practices and virtues: empathy, forbearance, patience, and tolerance. The proper ethic for diversity is an ethic of courage. That ethic is allied to practices of daring, judgment and friendship that are necessary to the practice of democracy. Democracies attract people of all kinds, with varying practices and cultures. The common ground of democracy is a wild and rich diversity that is both a source of pleasure and profit and a constant and common battlefield. Democrats are called to confront the chaos of the new among their people and in their politics. Courage makes possible the inventiveness of capitalism, the surety of friendship, and the possibility of democratic rule.

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