Yuval Levin's The Fragmented Society has the long view of what is happening in our world: he observes our politics and our thinking is nostalgia for the 1950’s and early ‘60’s in our quest for economic equality, when Norman Rockwell had those drawings that showed us the view of ourselves that we liked, “cohesion and consolidation” into a looser structure.
It is not the blame of a candidate or a party or the 1% or the banks that bring us to where we are , Levin claims, but a dynamic in play and we’re only going forward and cannot go back.
We are in an age of decentralization and fragmentation, and though we want to blame a candidate or a party or the 1%, this shift was going to happen with a middle missing, “ hollowed out” and the edges are the super wealthy on one end and significantly less, the poor on the other.
David Brooks reports on Levin’s perspective in the NYTimes today, and it is well worth reading, particularly around community and identity, and getting down to the need for neighborhood organizations, acknowledging our “golden chain” of connection to address our problems-bottom up.”
ujreview.com/...check it out