By Daniel E. Burns
Levin argues that “at the heart of our broader social crisis” is “the weakness of our institutions—from the family on up through the national government, with much in between.” He points out that, by most easily measurable criteria, our country faced much greater challenges in the thirties or late sixties: what is new today is not the strength of our common challenges but only our collective weakness in confronting them, which in turn can be traced to the weakness of our formative institutions. “Breaking away from institutional commitments can seem like liberation, but it more often feels like isolation—cold and lonely and pointless, devoid of love and loyalty,” like too much of American life today.
Originally published on 27 January 2020 at Public Discourse
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