Democracy is a highly contest term and is constantly redefined by modern contexts. However, the success of a democracy always relied on its ability to ensure political equality and liberty. Yet the struggles in modern democracies such as US and UK highlight the difficulties in achieving these goals. Ronald Reagan (1982) once proposed that to foster the infrastructure of a democracy, there must be a system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities, which allows a people to choose their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means. To achieve this, modern democracies must cultivate a sentiment called sympathy which was proposed by Adam Smith in the Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS). Smith explains that sympathy is the ability for one to make moral judgement through the process of imagination, reasoning and feeling. By engaging in the emotions of the fellow people, individuals can then form understanding and esta
blish commonality. However, sympathetic sentiments are not without its risks and is capable to divide as it is to unify. This essay shall explore whether there is a need for modern democracies such as the US to cultivate sympathetic sentiment through 3 points of discussion. Firstly, the concept of sympathy propose by Adam Smith will be carefully examined and highlight its importance in the modern era due to the rise of multicultural societies. Secondly, the method of cultivating sympathy is discussed and contend that sympathy proposed by Smith is hard to cultivate in a modern democracy. Lastly, the effects of sympathy will be explored in a contemporary setting and contend sympathy has directly linked to the rise of populist and may create further divisiveness rather than unity. These three discussions will conclude and contend that whilst sympathy needs to be cultivated, the intention and conduct to cultivate sympathy must change as current practices erodes democratic norm.