Sentence:  I have suggested that the explanation of the overwhelming support that democracy currently enjoys consists less in the formal merits of its justificatory argumentation or its practical results than in the effectiveness of its dominant metaphors, narratives, aspirations, meanings, and self-understanding which together constitute a <WSD>tropology</WSD> more evocative and formidable than its rivals. It is a <WSD>tropology</WSD> of equality above all else—of antihierarchy, antiprivilege, and antiauthoritarianism—one in which human relations both ethical and political are symmetrically structured in principle, if not always in fact, and every person counts for no more or less than one. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A recurring motif or metaphor, a trope; an interplay of tropes.