in my humble opinion, what 45 says and gets away with shows youth & others that immorality, being unethical and crime does pay!
28
Those on the top know that if you create a world that's not worth living in it's just as if you destroyed it outright (except the world's actual destruction wouldn't spare those at the top).
7
Betrayal of people that trusted institutions to do as they promised. Over and over again,betrayal of trust.
7
The problem is identified - lack of faith in institutions. But the solution offered is laughable. Individuals simply need to act better? One of the biggest problems has been the decades old narrative consistently pushed by the Republican Party and conservative media (Murdoch, et al) that says that all government is corrupt, wasteful, immoral. These lies have worked to undermine confidence so that the rich can gain political control to get tax cuts.
13
Mr. Levin's correct here. Perhaps he could mention the need for revival of important public institutions to his Republican friends in the Senate and the American Enterprise Institute (where he works) who are busily devoting their careers and lives to the destruction of the various public institutions he herein encourages the non-1% public to build up.
Nothing ever changes, we are Charlie Brown, and the oligarchs have an infinite capacity to generate multiple Lucy's, whose jobs it is to misdirect giant swaths of Americans into thinking wrongly: "It's that you don't know how to kick a football properly, not that I pull it away at the last minute." Gad.
The brute calculus here is promotion of the toxic ideology that allows predatory markets to win the economic battles of our time between the oligarchs and everyone else, internationally. After the battle, the oligarchs representatives like Levin to the commoners to tell them in the aftermath of this huge economic war for the threefold profits of society over the last 40 years, that the most important job they can now do is bind up the wounded and care for the impoverished, the despairing, the deranged, amputees and PTSD survivors.
But whatever you do, don't question the policy decisions that created the oligarchs in the first place. Poking your nose into that is off limits. Do that, and they send the jackals for you.
See John Perkins "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btF6nKHo2i0
15
Our “core institutions” used to be thought of as organizations with moral, ethical, humanistic, and legal foundations. All of them were vulnerable to powerful, monied forces that figured out how to profit from controlling those institutions. Morality, ethics, humanism, and legality became casualties. Exhibit A: President Trump.
5
'Losing faith in our institutions' isn't the principal problem. We're experiencing cult-like behaviors that require de-programming. Who's going to do that?
5
So it's people bad, institutions good? That's Old World thinking. As Alexis de Tocqueville supposedly said, in America, people make institutions; in Europe people are made by institutions. Our writer is clearly of the latter school. He's probably a monarchist, too. We don't need yet more sermonizing of this kind in these Op-Ed pages. We need debate about how to change institutions that have become sclerotic or were badly designed in the first place, such as our electoral system.
1
People have lost faith in institutions. True enough, but the author fails to see the root cause.
Reagan said : “Government is the problem, not the solution”. Thatcher said: There is no such thing as society, only individuals”. Their policies helped to demonstrate the failure of communism and created conditions for many years of economic growth. They did not foresee that people would lose faith in institutions because institutions failed them. Maybe they can be forgiven. Observing that institutions are crumbling and not seeing the root cause is unforgivable. The author’s affiliation to the conservative think tank “American Enterprise Institute” explains his myopia. The remedy he offers: “Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream” is a tautology.
11
So we should double down on existing institutions, waving the magic wand of Be Better. Ignore the increasing political and economic power of those giant institutions called multi-national corporations? Come on man.
4
We’ve lost faith in our institutions because they've promised too much and delivered too little. Governments can’t solve complex social problems, and we should quit expecting the to.
2
How did our institutions lose legitimacy and become more of a platform for “performance” than “character building”?
The obvious (and therefor, PARTIALLY wrong) answer is excess influence from “the market” in the sense that value is measured in dollars. More to the point, our institutions have become too dependent and subservient to the mega wealthy donor class.
Of course, institutions have ALWAYS been subject to inordinate influence by conquerors and other masters of great wealth. That’s one reason institutions must be periodically reformed to meet broader needs often ignored or denied by the very wealthy.
We live in one of those times when it is considered “moderate” to poo poo the claims of the majority who lack access to specialized skills or who have been denied (or perhaps have rejected) the type of education that offers more insight into the complex and historical contingencies that shape, drive, and sometimes distort, fundamental social institutions. We also live in a time when there is a retreat from the type of liberal education that supports the development of such understandings.
Luckily for the US, we have a precedent, in the years following the Great Depression, for ameliorating the affects of wealth inequality and inducing large majorities to again “buy into” the institutional structure in a meaningful way. But “moderates” are poo pooing the idea of a Green New Deal while an unforgiving climate and social catastrophe of vast proportions bears down.
4
I'm pretty impressed by our institutions and the people who make them run.
It has been a Republican Party project for decades to trash many of them, in word and in deed – especially public institutions, of course. Mr. Levin's essay appears to be part of that effort.
9
Cynics! Think about this. If you were stuck in a burning building, people would come for you. This is what we take for granted in America. Let’s build on that. It may seem cool or smart to be cynical, but you’re turning a cold shoulder on your fellows.
6
How did Americans lose faith in everything you ask. This is what
Richard Shelby of Alabama said about Trump's corruption and bribes. "People make mistakes." Really? Then why do we have people in prison after they break laws if people make mistakes? They should be free to go knowing they "just made mistakes".
4
@Jacquie: By the time one is Trump's age, one is supposed to have learned how to make fewer mistakes, and correct the ones one does make, as soon as they are recognized, or eat the loss from one's own lack of oversight.
5
By the time one reaches Trump's one should realize you don't argue in public with or disparage sixteen year olds.
3
Yet another opinion piece from the Times that comes from the perspective of the Liberal Elite, who care nothing about economic disparity but want to appear socially progressive. It's as if this piece was written without any economic context, and there's no discussion concerning the role of unfettered corporate capitalism in the growing distrust that Americans have in "institutions."
2
After Gallagher, who committed atrocities, was permitted to keep his Seal membership in the elite commando force and Sec'y Spencer, who believed in the honor of the military, lost his job, the military can be held up as an example.
10
The beginning of the erosion of confidence in American institutions can be traced to the Warren report in the aftermath of Kennedy’s assassnation. To this day, few believe it was anything more than a coverup. Followed by more lies for our long failed war in Vietnam-then Watergate and the myriad of government deceptions since such as the contrivance for numerous wars in
Middle East; the toppling of foreign democracies like Chile; the Catholic Church pedophile scandals; presidential
election where the loser wins; unabated racial hatred; and on and on, it is little wonder that faith in our institutions have all but collapsed.
After 60 years 3-4 generations of this continuous and repetitive institution deception, i don’t know how or if our country can get through it.
8
Except for a passing reference to journalists using Twitter, mass and now social communication are missing here.
In the US these institutions are dominated by the sale of attention. That means those who work for commercial mass and social media have only a residual interest in discovering truths or in building trust. If your goal is to grab attention from masses of people you don't know, you tend to shout, offer stories with conflict, beautiful body parts, etc. You also don't realize that you don't really know the people you're shouting and projecting at. Recipients, unused to other forms of address, accept the projections as normal. Algorithms are evidently replicating this tendency at social media firms.
In a culture like ours, the attention resources we built up from a previous night's sleep are devoured by attention firms during our next waking day. I don't know that we lack trust in our other institutions. I think we are just tired. The commercial media are wearing us down. Two-year election campaigns? Come on.
Mass and social media are not an institution to ignore when exploring the contours of public trust.
2
Well excuse me, but how are the sciences playing this game? Mr. Levin, can you give me a prominent example? Yes, people are becoming less trusting of science, but that has almost nothing to do with people who work in the sciences. It has to do with people who don't like what the sciences are saying. These people constantly attack the sciences with arguments that are totally invalid... Why? To make money or to make political points. The only reason the military is different is that people are afraid of being called unpatriotic if they attack the military, otherwise it would be attacked also and the military would be in the same boat as the every other organization. Actually even the taboo against attacking the military is being broken down under Trump and soon we will have no organization that is free of tarnish. This is NOT because the tarnished organizations deserve it, but because self-serving leaders can make a buck politically by attacking honest people.
6
Amusing.
The AEI has supported the small government GOP to cut budgets of institutions, except the military, for generations. Cut budgets until failure is assured.
Now he is here to blame those institutions for failing.
9
I was born in 1966.
My first memories of current events are anti-government war protests.
My first memories of politics are the resignations of the vice president, the the president, in disgrace.
My first memories of economics are gas shortages and inflation.
My first memories of religion were of an uncle complaining about Vatican II and wars in the Middle East.
Why would I have faith in anything?
10
I have watched this country deteriorate for three years while the government sinks into blatant corruption. The country appears to have absolutely no way to defend itself. I have more than lost confidence in this country. I am disgusted by the size of the lie it represents.
For one, it is a lie that the president cannot be indicted. There is no constitutional text, law or judge who has ever said that this is so. It is also a lie that there is any shortage of evidence to convict.
14
Isn't it really simpler than that? The U.S. is suffering from a bias toward wealth that is written into the Constitution. And the rest of the world is suffering from the bias towards wealth that is written into the U.S. Constitution. That cancer has risen to the surface in the person of Donald Trump as its most visible symptom. It is preventing a sense of community from prevailing in your institutions, and may ultimately be responsible for the destruction of the planet unless you guys can get it together to come up with an effective way to counter that cowboy/outlaw/independent -- i.e., bullying -- attitude y'all love so much. You're welcome.
8
The author well describes the symptoms of decline of any nation that fails to underscore a collective narrative of purpose that guides individual behaviors and ethics, but fails to identify (purposely I think) Republicanism as the root cause of the breakdown he loathes.
3
C'mon, AEI, wake up. Institutions which do not inspire trust and do not attract adherents are failed institutions. We will commit to institutions that are worth our commitment.
Capitalism fosters selfishness and greed. That, coupled with our social Darwinism that blames the individual alone, and not the lack of society's responsibility to nurture, has created this "me first" culture. Fine for the well-connected and lucky...
7
Run for office or sell used cars and real estate - it's all about money. Nothing else matters. Government is an easy place to turn a swift buck. That's all. How one does that is not important. Overall, Americans are simply low in intelligence.
@Sang Ze :
Worst profession of all? Teachers. No profit at all in that.
Cut their budgets. - AEI
1
A very pedantic, right wing piece of writing. It castigates every institution in society for failing to live up to some allegedly known standard. The problem with America is that the people are living with the ethos of 'What's in it for me?'
The big time lawyers and hyper paid business people whose values are attacked here behave thus because they are concerned only with the profits of the investors. This is aided and abetted by a tax code allowing international businesses to pay nothing in taxes, taxes their shareholders at a greatly reduced capital gains rate, and encouraged the transition of their businesses to overseas enterprises instead of American ones. That tax code was written for the 350,000 of the wealthiest American investors and not for the rest of us 340,000,000 millions.
Americans cannot trust business because it cares only for profits and not for America. As to the Media, they cannot be trusted because they are totally profit and personality driven. Wild stories with no genuine truth in them are published on paper and on television and on the internet which have no basis in reality. because the reporters are only interested in self aggrandizement and the money it brings.
As for senators and representatives doing only what their voters want, consider this: "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion."
Edmund Burke
2
There is no such thing as “the media.”
1
Is popular culture an institution?
When I was growing up in the sixties and seventies our popular culture promoted certain idealistic values. Television, movies and music mostly portrayed a world filled with family, service, community and the social good.
Some people began to ridicule what they saw as unrealistic "Leave it to Beaver" manners and values portrayed on TV and movies of the time. So gradually a certain cynicism started creeping into popular culture in the eighties and the nineties.
Eventually the love, peace and understanding and idealism of the sixties and seventies gave way to misogynistic profanity filled gangster rap, (No more socially conscious or protest music) internet porn, (nothing like playboy magazine) ultra violent movies filled with excessive profanity and our current "famous for being famous" culture. One fifth of grade school kids today when asked what they want to be when they grow up say "famous." That's it. Just famous. Add to this mix Fox news and MSNBC and their yelling heads broadcasting 24/7. Is it any wonder that cynicism, incivility and nihilism has become popular among large numbers of young people.
So the question becomes does popular culture only reflect who we are?... Or does popular culture make us who we are?
4
The moral decline of the United States is behind it all.Respect for human life all but disappeared Killings in Chicago,Baltimore is less important than enforcing common sense steps to prevent crime even if is perceived as racially biased.The unregulated termination of pregnancies up t 9months of pregnancy is the open goal of a large segment of Democrats.Destroying our culture by open borders against laws passed by Congress is destructive .We need time to absorb and integrate new arrivals.
2
@Gdk
Well, thank goodness for that.
I thought it was when Conservatives put money and corporations above the lives of people. That would have been about 1880.
2
The problem with ideologues is that they drink their own Kool-aid.
Human behavior is complex. We are driven by conflicting imperatives. The ideologue chooses to see what is convenient but fails to see what is necessary.
We live in a time of historic inequality; inequality of opportunity, income, wealth and power.
Persistent inequality breeds a lack of empathy, a sense that we're all fighting over the last crumbs of a pie that just isn't quite big enough for all of us. We begin to focus on our differences rather than our commonalities. We see each other as competitors rather than compatriots.
In this environment, institutions become platforms for self preservation, or even self enrichment for the fortunate few.
Rent seeking becomes normal.
People lose faith in institutions when they cease to be relevant to them.
When we feel powerless, when established institutions no longer work for us, we will fall back on primal patterns of survival behavior. We circle the wagons, we fall back into our tribes.
What is Populism if not a modern manifestation of primal tribalism? We are a blank canvas for the demagogue, who can define our tribe and our enemy.
Pathos guides us, Logos and Ethos fall by the wayside. The inevitable crash will be spectacular.
3
There is no such thing as" institutional" character. An institution is a collection of individual humans doing what they have always done: trying to get ahead whether It's financially, socially, reputationalley, or politically.
Every organization I have worked for is filled with individuals trying to get ahead, often at the expense of other employees or customers. Humans are self-serving and so are their
" institutions." some institutional cultures happen to reward our better instincts, but many do not
@cheddarcheese: "Institutions" are created to transcend human lifespans and perpetuate the purposes of their founders.
2
I and my faith in life was greatly impacted by two things: 1) The election, again, of someone as President even though he received three million fewer votes than his opponent; and 2) The speed with which the progress of the last several decades was completely reversed.
I'm very glad I'm old and don't have to face what I expect will be a 50-75 year road back to a sane and just world.
7
The author seems content to ignore the 500 pound gorilla in the room:
It started with Vietnam, Watergate and sadly, the Civil Rights Acts. Liberals pointed to Vietnam. Conservatives to Civil Rights, and (at least in the 70s) both sides pointed to Watergate.
In the end, Conservative money inundated the nation in distrust of government. The southern strategy stoked white resentment of anyone not white, then expanded this resentment of government "interference" in "our way of life"
to government actions on everything from the environment, the poor, big business, taxes, and gun violence. Only the military survived this resentment (along with the vast military industrial complex that supports it).
Along with the above, the Conservative Think Tan.... er... propaganda machine, with the money of the 1%, convinced many Americans that ANY group effort, cooperation, pooling of resources, reaching across racial, religious, or ethnic lines was anti-American. Leaving the nation merely a group of individuals with no commitment to the common weal. Just the naked marketplace of dog eat dog.
In short, the Conservatives won the propaganda (messaging?) war of 1975-20016. Read Chomsky's interviews. He can support all of this with fact.
6
@Jerseytime: Several of the original states defined themselves as "commonwealths", a term that describes socialism before that word came into common use.
2
Trust the police? Ask minorities.
Trust the military? We're fighting in several parts of the world.
When could we ever trust the politicians?
Our schools are doing a lousy job.
Our colleges are a rip off.
Every comment must be followed by elect Bernie or nothing will change.
1
How? November 22, 1963. Try setting there. “ Trust in institutions “? It’s been downhill since that day in Dallas.
“Oswald, acting alone, killed JFK”
“ Epstein, acting alone, killed himself”.
No difference. Except now Americans know it’s all a lie.
2
There was an interesting study that showed that religious people have lower incidences of suicide. Also, I remember reading an article where a female psychologist was asked by an atheist mother how best to tell her child that there was no God. The psychologist responded by telling her to lie and tell her child there is a God, because children that believe in God are psychologically healthier. With the decline in church attendance and our society becoming more agnostic or atheistic, our faith and ability to hope is also diminished. We have forsaken religion for a secular ideology that replaces moral principles with situational ethics, transcendent truths with relativism, and spiritual joy with carnal pleasure. But most importantly, without faith there is to intrinsic belief that we evolve to the the good and that our collective American spirit is up to any challenges or existential threat. Our courage to have a family, build a business, to endure suffering and rise to any occasion is predicated on our belief in the transcendent value that connect all of us to each other as a family, as a community and as a people—love. It’s simple to act in love when we believe in a loving God. It’s easier to act with courage when our objectives are for the good of all. It’s joyful to live in a world where there is hope. The cure to our malaise comes not from the rationalizations of our mind, but from what we give to others from our hearts.
4
@Raul Campos: I don't care what the belief is, if it cannot be substantiated, it is unpersuasive. We are social animals who see a common reality from different perspectives. We are not pawns to execute commands attributed to dead people.
5
@Raul Campos
Its not surprising. Religion is designed to answer all the questions reality/science/reason cannot. It may be the reason it exists. For every great existential question, religions offer an easily digested answer. Its the great crutch of humanity. Heck, I see it in how my father deals with things as opposed to how I do. It involves a heckuva lot less thinking, and always gives him an answer.
But once you realize so many religions offer different answers, and different paths to those answers, and start wondering if its all just made-up, the crutch disappears.
And yes, reality and doubt are much more depressing than dogma.
9
@Steve Bolger
Is art an illusion? Is the love a that a parent has for their child not real? Are we to ignore the sacrifices that dead soldiers made for our freedom?
1
I agree that institutions can serve a very beneficial role. But many deep-seated problems in our culture are institutionalized with them -- cemented in place and upheld by difficult-to-change procedural, cultural, and even physical structures. Racism, sexism, and discrimination due to age, disability, pregnancy, etc. are so hard to solve or for many people to even see because they are institutionalized. The health insurance disaster is so bad in part because of that industry's institutional norms and practices. Addressing climate change is similar -- with massive physical infrastructure built for fossil fuels making things even more difficult. We are in a phase where much of the public sees that our institutions have created as many problems as they have ostensibly solved -- yet we have nothing as yet to replace them with.
Then there is the deliberate destruction by conservatives of institutions like public schooling, public universities, journalism, and the arts over the past 30-40 years.
All this has led to the personal-branding-on-steroids that Levin discusses -- as institutions crumble, and there is no such thing as job security anymore even for many highly educated people, there's nothing left but individuals, who now must scramble at all levels to keep their heads above water. It's the gig economy -- which the American Enterprise Institute likely celebrates -- writ large.
Conservatives need to look in the mirror when they lament the decline of the institution.
129
@Lassie - Racism and sexism have primarily hindered the evolution of true leadership for many decades.
Ronald Reagan was called a "teflon president" and I just heard a political commentator say that "Trump always has an off-ramp"; oh, to be part of the elite establishment with no consequences and blind support. Isn't the former CEO of Boeing having $60 million shoved into his pocket as he walks away from catastrophes? At least those Boeing airplane crashes don't appear to have taken the lives of people considered "important" in our nation.
15
@Lassie I take some exception to your point about conservatives being part of the problem. Journalists either choose to sensationalize and muck rake or their employer expects of them. Public schools produce poor results because, in part, it is too difficult to remove incompetent teachers. Plus, they are controlled by local boards whose constituents won’t support good pay for teachers. Yes, some that behavior is found in conservative communities. But, that doesn’t explain why the problem exists in larger, more liberal communities. People support alternatives to public schools because those institutions are failing them. We rate Congress low because it’s members value reelection more than doing their job. They are too happy with punting our major policy issues to the regulatory and judicial branches. Institutions fail because their leaders/members fail to do their job.
Maybe it starts with giving everyone medals and ribbons just for showing up rather than for performing.
5
I'd add that we have organizations in this country that work to break down people's integrity, make it contingent, and put it up for sale. Many employers are in that category. They expect people with actual professional knowledge -- engineers, lawyers, accountants, and so on -- to subordinate their professional expertise and ethics to the raw demands of whoever is paying the bill. Since very few people have the resources to just walk away from those situations (even educated professionals are the proletariat now), the employers tend to win.
103
@Maria :
That is capitalism.
Would you rather have Socialism, like the Happiest Countries on Earth?
5
@gratis I'd prefer communism but I'll take socialism. Even democratic socialism.
5
@gratis Yes.
8
A government ALWAYS reflects how its citizens govern THEMSELVES. I'm not saying its people "deserve" whatever government they have; I'm saying it would appear to be a fact. The '60s opened up a lot of doors and glimpsed possibilities but we had to deal with the deep fear (of some very basic--read RADICAL, meaning ROOT--changes) those possibilities scared up in us, collectively speaking. Yuval Levin writes noble words about what we "should" be doing, but he doesn't understand the very REAL roots of authoritarian, top-down consciousness--which are embodied by what we call Capitalism, and which are provably antithetical to what we call Democracy. Capitalism constantly re-shapes itself to siphon increasing amounts of wealth to the top of society, making Democracy increasingly less possible and an ever-increasingly distant, evermore vague ideal. When the majority of society's members are struggling just to economically survive, they are too fearfully distracted to participate in self-government (either personally or collectively) and "government" becomes The Parent. Again. And "Democracy" disappears, because almost nobody has the wherewithal to think and act on behalf of ALL, aside from distracting us with all the things we need to BUY and CONSUME--the great ruse of the current form of Capitalism: Think of all the illiterate kids nowadays who nevertheless have expensive cell phones (I'm a teacher), who can't remember anything because they can Google "the answer."
3
Your conception of society is that we have two groups: the leaders in an institution and those who do the work or study. The leaders and the followers.
Your view of our decadence is that the leaders are interested in dramatizing themselves, a goal that spreads to the followers.
A realistic view of society, however, is that above the followers and leaders is an elite, an Establishment, or to use a now fashionable phrase, a capitalist class.
And that class, ultimately is whence the degeneration. It's no longer creative, not the brains behind the industrial revolution, or the automotive revolution. It has no direction and no function.
It has no coherent message to send down to the "leaders" and followers. The institutions have no purpose except to do what they did in the past, projecting what was once proper as what should be proper.
This was the method of the late Soviet planning system. Emphasis on late.
The name for such activity is "meaningless busywork".
Give people a sense of purpose and improvement of society, ---meaningful work---and you will mobilize their creativity, belief, and commitment. And hope. And happiness.
Give them meaningless busywork and they'll go nuts.
4
All of these comments can be traced to the income equality we have seen grow over the past 40 years. That seems to be the time frame used by many of today's writers. That is not coincidental. It began with Ronald Reagan and has just grown since. He broke unions with his air traffic controller debacle. He made greed the number one driving force of our nation and he was the original one who made government our enemy.
Imagine if when he became president, instead of instantly removing the solar panels installed by Jimmy Carter, he had said "this is a great idea". Let's try to promote clean energy and make the planet a safer place for our children and grandchildren. And it will be good for the economy.
"Imagine"
6
The battle for our democracy is between the 4th estate, free and unbiased media and George Orwell's 5th estate, created by GOP Plutocrats. The 5th estate is the multi-billion-dollar right wing misinformation on the virtues of their trickle-down economics, their wars in Middle East, climate change, etc all for their economical benefits.
Perhaps the most responsible is Rupert Murdoch who owns 70% of print media in his native Australia and is determined to do likewise here. Since Nixon, every GOP administration continues to award media monopolies, to him and his like-minded plutocrats like the St. Clair network, etc. where now the majority media is owned by them.
These right-winger’s prey on the uninformed and uneducated fools to spread their fake news, false equivalencies, patriotic fervor, religious fascism, misogyny, etc. so to incite them to with uncontrollable rage to elect their favorite politicians. Their fruits of their labor, Trump administration, actually admitted to this cabal, when one of them actually admitted “we will create our own facts”.
Thanks to Murdoch and like minded evil, we have a multi billion-dollar industry of alternate facts. As Orwell pointed out, the goals of those who want to govern as a dictatorship is to confuse facts so much that no one knows what to believe. To protect our cherished democracy, we need to get rid of industrial and media monopolies, and bring transparency in the media and political donations.
4
If you want to see what society with no institutions looks like, consider Russia. There is no layer of protection between the people and the government. Russians invest their identity not in professional associations, business communities, or religious affiliation but in the almighty Russian state and its deified leader (remember that the church is also part of the state). This is why Putin will never go away. The seventy years of socialism destroyed every institution Russia used to have, from the independent media to the professional judiciary. The result is a dictatorship supported by slavish, apathetic masses. American so-called “liberals”, angrily protesting the “corporate media”, “conservative judges”, and so on, should think a little harder about the unintended consequences of putting all your trust in the government, even if it is supported by a majority.
The special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction declared in Congress: “There’s an odor of mendacity throughout the Afghanistan issue . . . mendacity and hubris,” John F. Sopko said in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “The problem is there is a disincentive, really, to tell the truth. We have created an incentive to almost require people to lie." (from WashPo) Thus it is clear that the military is no more trustworthy than politicians who all were economical with the truth about the cost (human & financial) of the Afghan war. Trust in institutions can only exist when these institutions are trustworthy. So, once again,Trump is the symptom and symbol of a larger malady. Even the Times should do some soul searching when it decides to keep silent about some newsworthy items (Epstein's links with intel services, the OPCW doctoring of its report...). More honesty and trustworthiness all round are needed.
2
How? Rupert Murdoch, the Koch brothers and their allies.
Fox New.
4
Since 911 I've come to think nothing, especially not the military, is an admirable american institution. I should be remembered that in 1999 newspapers like Reuters were starting to become very critical of the fact that the pentagon had not submitted a proper audit of its accounts in 30 years. It was a subject raised again in Reuters in 2014.
The second invasion of Iraq, without the approval of the UN, cured me of the knee jerk patriotism - or hysteria - 911 was supposed to induce. It also cured me of any faith that Afghanistan was justified either.
Only those totally ignorant of building technology believe Bldg 7 came down due to fire. IT was a well planned demolition and even NIST lied about it. Perhaps "patriotically" motivated insurance fraud is the cause? If NIST hadn't lied about the real cause, the lease owner would never have collected several hundred million dollars in insurance. Architects and Engineers for 911 truth have done compelling work showing the numerous inconsistencies and omissions in that report. And the online edition of the report I saw had a disclaimer on every page -that nothing in it could be used in a court of law.
Trump is the perfect president for a deceitful country on the desperate make. If he sounds like a thug it is because this country has been a ruthless murderer and thief for well over 20 years. The true ugly face has come right to the surface finally!
Before Democrats took over every big city in this country, we never had these kinds of problems: drugs, illegals, homeless, fatherless families, no religion, socialist teachers, LGBT dictating their morals, etc! It's going to take a major overhaul of this country to change this. The United States is close to becoming a 3rd World chithole because of Democrats!
2
@Nobama :
Oh, these things existed. But before Democrats, it was OK to ignore them.
4
When did it all start to crumble? Perhaps the Vietnam War was the beginning. Young Americans were dying in a foreign country in a war they didn't understand. Napalm. Maimed children. Apocalypse Now. Helicopters pushed off buildings when we retreated. When these soldiers returned to the US they were not honored as heroes, and many questioned why they had to fight those battles in the first place. We seemed to be coming together for a few years. Then came 9/11 and patriotism was reborn. Too bad we ignored the real perpetrators and flattened Iraq--a war without a plan for the future. America is wounded and divided, and we have never healed. Patriotism disappears when citizens lose respect for the government, and this is what we should expect when our elected officials betray our trust. Be careful who you vote for this time. Your future depends on your choices.
@Daphne - If the Supreme Court lets stand the federal appeals court decision regarding Baca V Colorado Dept. of State then no, the future does not depend on our choice at the ballot box. It will depend on the decisions of electors who will be free to cast their vote any way they feel like. They will not have to pay attention to the popular vote. Only 21 states have made rules requiring electors to heed the popular note.
What is maddening is that The SC hasn't posted its entire docit yet but seems to be going month by month.
Mr. Trump's personality can be dismissed without discussion. However, the suave, acceptable politicians offer little that is different. From unbridled self-interest to a mythical Marxist religion few politicians seem interested in those who actually are obeying the law, going to work each day, treating others with kindness and displaying loyalty to spouse and family. We are waiting for someone in whom we can place our faith.
Mr. Levin's piece focusing on the decline of institutions was quite insightful.
An important component of this decline however, is the devaluation of professionals. Years of hard work, education and experience are now readily replaced by a quick internet search or post.
The measles epidemic is not the consequence of competing scientific ideologies but rather the scientific institution being challenged by uninformed tweets. Likewise, climate change is being challenged not by competing professionals with data but by a bunch of politicians with an agenda.
Thus, the decline in institutions is not just from within but by the devaluation of these institutions by those on the outside (who think they can learn to bunt and hit and run by simply reading it on the internet)
2
Thank you for placing the obligation of trustworthiness at the center of the project of recovering that lost, lamented social necessity: trust. The virtues most needed are humility and restraint, because these are precisely the ones that can counter the prevailing vices of envy and the striving for celebrity.
The thing that would help America the most at this moment is to free itself of the relentless curse of both-sides-ism.
No, the truth is not exactly in the middle between MSNBC and Fox News. MSNBC reports stories that appeal to the left, but by and large it reports truthfully. (Yes, there really was lead in Flint, Michigan city water.)
And then there is Fox News, which allows representatives of the Trump administration come on their network and spew whatever propaganda they please as real news. (Mike Pompeo announcing that he didn't know what was in Trump's infamous phone call because he hadn't read the "transcript" when in fact he LISTENED IN ON THE CALL was an egregious example.)
Likewise, responsible government is not exactly in the middle between Adam Schiff and Devon Nunes or between Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell. The Democrats in the House are trying their best to run an impeachment according to the Constitution-- while also passing bill after bill over to the Senate. Mitch McConnell refuses to let any House bill even come to the floor for debate, while also making it clear he fully intends to violate his oath to hold a fair trial of the Impeachment charges. Then Fox News spreads the libel that the House Democrats are only working on impeachment instead of "doing their job" and passing laws!
There aren't two valid sides any more in this debate. There are Fox News and the Republican Party-- and then there is truth. One of these things is not like the other.
1
@Eleanor :
It is clear to any clear thinking Conservative that the Democrats are at fault for not forcing the GOP to follow the Rule of Law.
1
I agree the loss of trust in institutions is central to our current societal crisis.
And I would add the history of distrust built on the institutional failures of the Vietnam war and the distrust sowed by Watergate (even though the Watergate trials actually showed the institution working).
But what I think the folks at AEI always fail to note is the efforts of the Cato institute and other conservative think tanks to sow distrust of our governmental institutions. This effort, substantially funded by the Koch brothers and their ilk have been incredibly successful at embedding the notion that government is always ineffective, inefficient and shouldn’t be trusted. Which is exactly what this article decries....
If you can’t see how your own institution is central to the problem, then you really aren’t moving the discussion forward. Because that is where the solutions come from. When people can see how they were part of the loss of trust, then they might be able to change their behavior to start working on enhancing trust.
So yes, we need members of Congress to start behaving like there are norms to being a Congressperson that are crucial to their own credibility; and members of these think tanks might want to start building their credibility by building the credibility of their institutions too.
2
@Jim Carroll: There's no help for people who don't understand that public sectors of mixed economies evolved to exercise certain coercive powers no private corporation has to raise money by taxation and spend it on projects and services that benefit the public at large, which is socialism in a nutshell.
1
The Republican Party has ruined the country, dooming our future in a cloud full of carbon emissions. How can we not lose faith?
2
A most thought provoking article. The thought I have is the the author is from an organization whose core beliefs include the axiom that the most horrible words any American can hear is, "I'm from the government and I am here to help."
The destruction of institutions is core to the AEI.
3
Y’all are going to hate this, but I think the downfall came from our sending mothers to work. Mothers used to stay at home with their babies, committing them to sporting clubs, church groups, scouts, school groups, that all helped build that “character” you describe as lost. It’s clear in the membership numbers of the “joiner” kids of the 50s and 60s to the “latch-key” kids of the 70s.
2
@Cindy :
Perhaps mothers had to work because husbands were not paid enough by the huge multi-billion dollar corporation that employed him.
7
I agree that when nurturing the young and passing down values and ethics is seen as a a top priority everything else falls into place. This can be done in families with two working parents but it is very hard and they have to be very intentional about it.
2
What stands out is the example of trustworthiness being the military. Let’s say WAS as in the past. We have the POTUS denigrating the military process of fair play and honor. Berating generals. Exonerating war criminals. Abandoning our allies. Assassinating generals from other countries, AND at an airport. I think the failure of confidence in institutions has to expand to include the military. POTUS , the CIC is who they now are.
3
@Robert Black :
What stands out to me is that AEI is small government, low regulation proponent. It is why they exist.
And the US military is wholly government owned and run, and as all kinds of regulations.
I wonder if Mr. Levin gets the irony.
1
Seems to me the only way out is on an individual, personal basis.
Refuse to engage in the disparaging behavior, the disrespect for others and retain your civility.
Personally I have not lost faith in America - yet. However, should Americans, after the last four years, knowingly and recklessly choose Trumpism in 2020, things will be very different for me and mine thereafter. To be sure, faith in America is at profound risk. If Americans choose a reality distorting, brazen, lying president, who with his supporters truly believes he is a chosen one and beyond the law, is in fact treated by the law and the courts as if he is beyond the law and cannot be prosecuted by the law and is packing the courts with sympathetic judges, America will be dangerously different after such an election result. And not a shot fired.
2
America is too large, diverse and fractious to save. The recommendations you make are based on a time when America was much smaller and controlled by the actions of a few idealistic men. They were able to overcome the ignorance of the masses with enlighten persuasion. Since then the ignorance of the masses has taken control of the men who are in control today.
AEI, Cato, Tea Party, the Republican Party since Reagan, the Federalist Society, the Chicago School, Wall St advertising budgets, have spent decades hammering on our institutions: government is the problem!!!!! But the government is us, We the People. Those who attacked our institutions do not respect democracy. The Republican Party is poised to dismiss the impeachment charges against Trump, when he set about attacking democracy with the help of Russia. When he obstructed justice. And these actions can't even rise to the level of charges for which he should be impeached. Instead, Trump goes ahead and abuses his powers of office, for which he took an oath to respect, and a Constitution to honor and defend, and the Republicans sit back and will give him a further pass. Let him profit from his time in office. Let him run up a $150,000,000 for golfing alone -- a significant portion of which lines his own pockets for golf carts rentals for the Secret Service. We need more democracy. We need to get rid of Gerrymandering. But the Republican justices won't have it. The Electoral College was corrupted by the Russians and, so, as a risk to our democracy, it should be scrapped. Conflict of interest rules should be tightened beyond what Warren proposes. The Conservative Movement has systematically marginalized the average American voice on both the left and right and Wall Street would have it no other way. More democracy is needed to make our institutions respected.
6
What a thoughtful piece. Kudos to the writer. My take on this current period of "cultural doubt" in American institutions delves into the realm of our founding, and the hypocritical basis of their existence since then. This known institutional hypocrisy lends itself to boundless cognitive dissonance where clear moral transgression(s) by folks in said institutions, are waved off, largely, by their interested group, thereby creating classes of impunity laden misfits of all stripes. How or when is it fixed? Probably never. Just see the issue of the impending US Senate trial of #45 now and the predetermined outcome. It sends an awful signal to the world. But then again chattel slavery and American racial apartheid send a awful message too but that has NOT dissuaded folks from trying to get here. Complete institutional will probably never happened as reflected in the 2 examples. Yet we must have some measure of trust in our institutions to function as nation safely and exist with actionable morals and strategic strength.
1
For many, greed and self-interest now trump service and shared values. These individuals embrace institutions that enable the former and mock or destroy the ones that support the latter. The individuals manipulate the institutions instead of the institutions molding the individuals.
2
Speaking of institutions in which I have very little trust, the American Enterprise Institute (Mr. Levin's employer) is near the top of my list.
The AEI has spend decades advancing the narrow interests of American crony capitalists by wrapping and camouflaging the unmitigated greed of these oligarchs in a red-white-and-blue robe of jingoistic patriotism.
The real soul-sapping pathology of modern American society is the veneration of wealth above all other values - and then insinuating via TV and popular culture that anyone who isn't wealthy is a "loser" - whose lack of easy wealth is solely their own fault.
When half the country is surviving paycheck-to-paycheck - just one or two months away from total destitution - that's a critical mass of culturally-shamed "losers" who are desperately seeking meaning and salvation from their omnipresent stress and financial struggles.
The AEI dismisses this half of our citizenry as "marginalized" and "parasitic" (just ask Mr. 47% - Mitt Romney). All they offer to this half of the country are the cheap bromides of "personal responsibility" and "work harder" - even as the AEI ceaselessly works to further tilt the social, legal and financial balances of our dysfunctional society even more towards the benefit of the uber-wealthy.
So when a charlatan, con artist and master demagogue like Trump worms his way into the national spotlight and tells these "losers" that he will fix all their problems by persecuting "the Other" - they're all in.
5
Common sense was fracturing going back to when the cults started cropping up with Jonestown a prime inflamation.
Yuval Levin says 're-committing'. No. It's doing the hard work of forging anew.
"...we can’t quite seem to get a handle on just where those roots lie."
Sure we can. The roots lie with Ronald "Government Is The Problem" Reagan.
4
Mr. Levin, your opinion is timely and thought provoking.
For me, the inflection point of the failure of our country's institutions occurs in 1980, when an actor, filled with contempt for govt., the rule of law, and minorities, became president.
The Reagan revolution, abetted by religious leaders seeking power over others, have provided an endless steam of unethical and dishonest characters to lead and corrupt institutions of all types. The laissez-faire economic liberalism and free market capitalism that destroyed unions and people focused safety nets and institutions, while, increasing corporate subsidies, etc. is a Reagan revolution construct that has shifted money and power from the many to the few.
The Reagan revolution gave the country Fox News and the right wing Republican propaganda machine, which in turn gave us Trump and right wing religious zealots, like Pence, Pompeo, and Barr attacking the Constitution and the rule of law.
That said, if the Republicans rig Trump's Senate trail, and the Constitutional remedy for abuse of power and crimes by a president fails to remove Trump from office, the US will become the worlds most powerful kleptocracy.
3
For profit incarceration.
For profit war.
For profit justice.
For profit parole.
For profit healthcare.
For profit education.
Faith is belief without evidence.
Faith in the United States of the 21st century is delusional.
6
What a thoughtful piece. Kudos to the writer. My take on this current period of "cultural doubt" in American institutions delves into the realm of our founding, and the hypocritical basis of their existence since then. This known institutional hypocrisy lends itself to boundless cognitive dissonance where clear moral transgression(s) by folks in said institutions, are waved off, largely, by their interested group, thereby creating classes of impunity laden misfits of all stripes. How or when is it fixed? Probably never. Just see the issue of the impending US Senate trial of #45 now and the predetermined outcome. It sends an awful signal to the world. But then again chattel slavery and American racial apartheid send a awful message too but that has NOT dissuaded folks from trying to get here. Complete institutional will probably never happened as reflected in the 2 examples. Yet we must have some measure of trust in our institutions to function as nation safely and exist with actionable morals and strategic strength.
I frankly get tired of these well-meaning college essays that appear -o often now in the NYTimes. I say 'college essays' because these kinds of generalized ruminations are exactly what we used to have to crank out as liberal arts students.
Deplore this, generalize about that, but never actually say anything specific or give useful advice.
The author decries individual 'brand building' on Twitter and other social media. I wonder-- does he have a Twitter account? Does he use social media to promulgate his individual musings? If so, he's only part of what he decries.
I don't have a Twitter account, or any other social media account. My occasional contributions to NYT comments are hardly world-shaking, and I use a pseudonym anyway. No kudos there!
Does the author go to church or temple every week? Has he run for public office? Has he practiced in a serious trade or profession? It would be nice to know these sorts of things.
I've subscribed to the NYTimes for 30 years, ever since the national edition came out in 1989. So I've watched it actively subvert all of our institutions with increasing momentum in all that time.
To the Times and its very large ilk, all institutions must be transformed. This requires that they be destroyed. So here we are-- why complain?
2
As to why, you need only look at the institution of war carried out by America since the end of the Korean War, 1955, to see a vivid part of the solution. Being among the peon war fighters who actually fought in one of these wars, I reverb this sentiment toward institutional practices in the US, i.e., You want loyalty? Go hire a dog.
The failure of institutions to provide a common sense of identity, meaning, and purpose, and their failure to shape character and ethical behavior are symptoms not causes.
Until later part of the last century, a common sense of identity, meaning, and purpose was provided by the Judeo-Christian principles; specifically, the principles of English Puritanism which emphasized the equality of all before God and the equality of all in government. English Puritan settlers also brought the ideal of forming communities and institutions, not for personal gain or advancement, but to achieve an intellectual ideal, in their case a Christian community. Lastly, these Judeo-Christian principles and the desire to live for a larger “good” shaped the character and ethical behavior of individuals by limiting the unfettered excesses of personal freedom.
The breakdown of these Puritan ideals in the core of American society and institutions over the past 50 years is causing the current lack of trust in America’s institutions. The solution is not to simply encourage individuals in America’s institutions to behave better. People need an ideal, a greater good beyond themselves to motivate a change in behavior.
The only way to fix the self-interest plaguing American institutions is to stop the 50-year trend of pushing religion out of the public square and return to the Puritans’ ideals for community, institutions and behavior. The Puritans gave this country more than just Thanksgiving Day.
Alan Dershowitz: "The abuse of power, even when proved, is not an impeachable offense." January 17, 2020.
Russia was a determining factor in the 2016 election, ensuring the victory of an unqualified candidate who invited their interference on the campaign trail and threatened to jail his opponent - who'd committed no crime.
Since then, Trump and the Senate G.O.P. have refused to consider legislation that would protect our elections from foreign interference. Trump has publicly invited China, Russia and other countries to conduct bogus investigations into candidates and said he would again accept foreign help getting elected.
Our government is not responding to a Constitutional crisis and assault on democracy because miscreants with no regard for the law have grabbed the reins of power and are perverting the law and institutional norms to ensure they remain in control.
If the Republican senators acquit Donald Trump and leave him in office by lying for him & refusing to hold him accountable for his crimes and obstruction of Congress and justice in the only way our Constitution has provided to make him accountable and force his removal from office, wait and see how the American people respond to this final breakdown of our government.
The American people are sick of this.
"The military is the most conspicuous exception and also the most unabashedly formative of our national institutions — molding men and women who clearly take a standard of behavior and responsibility seriously." I take SERIOUS exception to this quote in Levin's article. Our military has shown itself in recent years to be misogynist to the point of raping its soldiers-in-arms and not infrequently and not just within one branch. It has a not-inconsequential contingent of white supremacists within as evidenced by the military members in the assault on Charlottesville and other events that have come to light but are usually silenced quickly. Its own SEALS are guilty of war atrocities to which they are given a pass by our president and not just once. Everything else within this article I can agree with, but I cannot give the military a pass as regards societal breakdown of institutions. They are as guilty as any of the other aforementioned groups
2
For example, how to respect the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) when they allow homeopathic drugs, shamelessly dishonoring itself under pressure from the homeopathic industry? When they allow all kind of vaping products, without any restriction, without any testing, without any concern?
1
@Ichigo
You pick on homeopathic therapies when the FDA approved opioid use? And totally believed Big Pharma about the safety?
1
There is a fundamental misunderstanding this author makes.
Half of Americans absolutely do not see institutions as structures for upholding the common good and passing along standards of behavior. They see institutions (and all social structures) as things which facilitate the promotion of the good/strong and the demotion of the bad/weak. Institutions are necessary, because they properly structure society by rewarding the people who deserve to be rewarded.
Among these people, the cynicism doesn't come from a vague sense that elites are untrustworthy. It comes from a very concrete feeling that the wrong people are being promoted. It's an idea that has roots very far back but is best encapsulated by Reagan's famous 'welfare queen.' Here, Donald Trump is a bad president not because of his numerous practical failings, but rather because he somehow cheated the system: he made the losers win and the winners lose.
The author's suggested answer for this is pretty chilling: Everyone should just know their role. It's blatantly authoritarian in the Altemeyer sense.
1
"For the love of money is the root of all evil." I'm not religious, but I think that verse in Timothy sums up most of the problems in America; the relentless pursuit of the almighty dollar. Any government interference is viewed as anti-capitalist and "socialist." As a result, Americans are getting poorer, hopeless, jaded, and depressed over their lot in life. They are even having fewer children. Why? Because they can't afford them and they know it. Is this really the best we can do?
1
Capitalism is a virus; it spreads to every possible carrier of profit. We are no longer mere targets for the advertisement of products. We ARE products. The individual is being shorn of all other legitimate roles—family member, congregant, citizen, etc—and turned into a commodity as our personal data is sold and we are all urged to become personal “brands.” Institutions rise to fill the social needs of individuals; they wither when individuals are defined solely in terms of their capacity to build capital. Americans are in a crisis of FAITH. They simply can’t believe the source of their misery lies in the very thing they cherish as the source of all happiness: their endless pursuit of money.
You're right in saying that we must exercise our consciences with regard to our participation and behavior within institutions. Who disagrees with that?
What's missing here is laying the blame for the diminution in institutional trust and influence. The blame lies squarely with Donald Trump, the Repubican Party (going back long before Donald Trump--going back to Ronald Reagan, and even somewhat before), and the right wing in general, that cynically undercut institutions to serve their own purposes. Yet you barely mention Trump, and his fellow Republican villains not at all.
Without identifying the parties responsible for the problem, what you say doesn't move the football more than an inch toward the goal line. Neutrality won't serve here.
This is a joke, right? The so-called "bonds of trust" have been smashed to smithereens by 1) the crew that emigrated to Florida to "supervise" the 2000 recount; 2) the Scalia-led Supreme Court that signed off; 3) The phony oil-grab masquerading as a search for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction; 4) the ensuing never-ending war that has crippled beyond measure the military whose post-Vietnam revitalization had gained momentum under the leadership of Colin Powell; 5) The Repub declaration of war against Barack Obama's presidency; 6) the bank bailout, the monetization of the foreclosure tidal wave and the constant Wall Street/right wing hectoring of Ben Bernanke, who saved the economy; 7) Trump, the cherry on top, that renowned promoter of "the bonds of trust essential for a free society." Gee, what a mystery; how can we get to the bottom of it?
3
Let's please stop dabbling in false equivalents. Americans didn't lose faith in everything, that's the Republican Party racket, not Democrats. Democrats aren't the ones believing all news is fake because there's some we don't like. Democrats aren't the ones undermining our institutions as if they're plotting against us to lend the impression big brother is watching, again, that's the scheme being cooked up by Republicans to sow discord, cynicism and hate. Republicans have nothing to sell to anyone but the top 1% and they know they can't win elections just pandering to the elite, so they are actively attempting to confuse folks that there's so very much wrong with everything they see, read and hear that they can't trust anything or anyone, but Fox News, the folks that were among the first to symbolically throw the match on the fire that's soon to be out of control.
I think the core problem, which manifests as all the symptoms itemized in the article, is the issue of human identity -- we are all suffering under the delusion of being a separate self detached from everything and everyone else. And our human nature compels us somehow to att h our very identities to that delusion of self-separateness and strive to enhance and magnify it. We are living in a deluded state which causes us to think of the self as, essentially, an idol of worship. And that self-obsession is a fundamental, crippling flaw in the psychology of humans as a species: the self-obsession overwhelms every institution and creates misery for society as well as for individuals suffering from it (isn't Trump, who epitomizes self-obsession the most miserable creature you ever saw?)
1
A beautifully written piece. Sadly there is little or no reason to expect change.
The best of times for shared responsibility and willingness to sacrifice for others came near the end of the depression, WW II, and the ten years after. Everyone had been ground down. Everyone’s family fought in the war. Fake bone spurs and a rich daddy did not exempt anyone.
From that far more equal time the country came together to help returning vets, support education, build great infrastructure, reduce the national debt, to begin to address racial and sexist prejudice, to lead the world, much of which was centered in federal action. That is when we actually earned the greatest nation myth.
But those days are gone. Short of another world war or similar disaster that damages the rich as much or more than the poor nothing is going to change
We have become an uncaring nation. Half the country gets terrible, third world education—no one really cares. Thirty million Americans without health insurance—who cares. Destroy the environment—where’s my new bigger suv. Racism and anti semitism growing—it’s the fault of an inferior people. We hate fellow Americans of different persuasion or different heritage than we hate ISIS. We hate our own. Just listen to our president who has the power to tell half of Americans how they Must think.
America in decline, yelling MAGA as we slide
My father once said ‘these days everyone is trying to rip each other off’. Trump is the embodiment of that, a reflection of a populace that delights in deception and dishonesty because they think it’s a clever virtue. A far cry from when ones word or a handshake was enough to seal a bargain.
Spot on, Yuval. Now be honest - aren't the US Senate and the Cabinet two of the most prominent examples of the problem?
In my opinion, this is a very shallow and presumptuous op-ed. To begin with, it is full of unsubstantiated generalizations. You do not speak for all Americans nor can you claim full knowledge of all institutions. I see millions of Americans working hard to live ethically and promote good values. I see most institutions functioning and serving society reasonable well,. Unfortunately, the Republican Party on display in the upper echelons of government.does not, and has not for many decades. I can substantiate this claim in a different forum.
Secondly, some of us believe that institutions are necessary, but that they tend to calcify and must evolve as society evolves, to better serve changing needs and realities.
Capitalism is one such institution. It is way past time for capitalism to be revamped to address the problems it has created: depletion of resources, exploitation of poor countries, the erosion of democracy, income inequality, garbage generation and pollution, and climate change.
Evangelical Christianity is another. Perhaps a more enlightened understanding of Christ's message is in order?
1
As a high school kid came to this beautiful country from Hong Kong after WWII, I witnessed the changes of this happy country and how it became a bitterly divided country. I studied American history and sociology in American schools in late 1940s and early 1950s. More than 70 years later, as a 90-year old retired person, I am still love this country. But today, America is a different country. A badly divided country. Why? As a foreigner all I can say it is because the racial problem. The black Americans always feel they are mistreated by White Americans. To me, this is not entirely true. Not every white American dislike black Americans. The changes probably started after Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his famous "I Have dream speech" in 1963. After MLK was assassinated in 1968. I saw with my own eyes that DC area became an inferno for more than two weeks. The black Americans almost destroyed the entire DC. It was so sad to see this unbelievable tragedy happened in America, After that period, the whole country never fully recovered. We are still divided. After eight years of president Obama administration it didn't help much. There are more demands for fair treatment from black Americans. But more less-educated White Americans may feel enough is enough and there are not much that they could do to help. As a foreign student more than 70 years ago and I am still a foreigner in America. Because they still ask me how long I have been in this country? This is the new reality.
1
American's are simply behaving like consumers.
When I want something, I click on Amazon, and a good product at a great price arrives the next day at my door. Reliably, every time. And I can give instant feedback to the product, the seller, etc.
When I want to go somewhere I click on my phone and an Uber vehicle materializes on my door step. Reliably, every time.
The cars, computers, Phones that I buy from time to time perform better with each generation, and are a delight to own.
But, when I need to renew my driver's license, I have to waste hours, standing in line in a decrepit DMV office, staffed by lazy, slow, sully workers.
Why would I trust an organization, the government, that subjects me to this kind of treatment? Government, and their public union controlled employees, don't care about me/us/Americans - the consumers of their services.
I will not trust an organization that proves time and time again, that they don't care about me. Government agencies and their employees deserve only our scorn.
1
Lost faith in everything ?
Baloney.
Maybe the press, and deservedly so as the N Y times regularly demonstrates.
Government ? No. No faith lost. More like suspicions confirmed in most cases.
Even our Founders didn't trust government and that's why things are structured the way they are, so that mischief can be rectified in some reasonable time rather than being a permanent fixture.
Things like the Catholic Chruch, and Boy Scouts, well that's different and the loss of faith is, again, well deserved.
But faith in the COnstitution is widespread and as long as a supermajority of Americans keep that faith in particular then nothing seriously wrong will persist.
The notion that institutions exist to mold character is a holdover from Marxist-Leninist mechanisms for forcing behavior on a population and can be ignored.
1
I think since the 1980's, a ethos of "integrity is for chumps" has evolved. I blame executives and politicians at the top who developed ways to justify feathering their own nest was the start of institutional breakdown. Why should anyone who works below such individuals "knock themselves out" for any non-monetary end. And the groups who historically proved the most useful stooges to those a the top of the pyramid are now "woke" and pretty darn mad. I have yet to experience resentful groups of people channeling their energy into being "better" than those they resent. So, out in the world today, I see three groups: the conscience-less takers, the cynical and uninspired whiners/destroyers, and the beaten down idealists. Each are susceptible to a different utopian fix lie. No one running for office has managed to inspire a belief that anything can be made better. Frankly, until the wealthy step up and acknowledged they are not deserving of their recent immense increase in wealth - and decent to share voluntarily to make for a better quality of life for all - I don't think there is a cure for the lose of trust in society's key institutions. Despair is all that's left for the idealists.
1
Republicans dont believe in government institutions
They work to destroy them from within and as they fail or are subverted to the will of the wealthy they fail the public they were designed to serve.
1
Unfortunately, Yuval Levin’s idea of a “free society” is the Libertarian dream of utter free market capitalism espoused by the American Enterprise Institute
2
Religious institutions claim to have God's guidance, and they're a right jolly mess.
Remember 'Don't Be Evil?'
Now, Google is a trillion dollar company and the catchphrase disappeared, buried under stacks of money.
All institutions degenerate for a simple reason, the self interest of the individuals in it. The problem of deterioration and lost integrity is in the mirror, looking elsewhere is merely denial.
It get quite annoying when liberal columnists claim to speak for me, and my friends and family.
“We” have more faith than ever in our law enforcement agencies, our military, iour local legislators, our churches, our hospitals, and our local and state governments.
Since the President’s election, we see more and more Americans standing firm for the values that made America great. Anyone, regardless of age, race, gender, or sexual orientation can succeed beyond their wildest dreams - if they work hard and make good choices.
Those who wallow in their self-perceived “victimhood” blame institutions, but the rest of us have faith and pride in those same institutions.
1
Institutions are collectives of individuals: they exist to serve people. They have been hollowed out & diminished by a 40 year onslaught of neoliberal policies- by & large.
Think Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: if you can’t adequately provide, education, healthcare, food & living wages for your children; then collective higher order needs ( community, institutions, religious, spiritual) are rendered irrelevant.
It’s revealing that the Military is cited as the one example of Institutional resilience-the multiply deployed poor white kids in the hinterland & the black kids in the inner cities, who’s career options are drug dealer or the Army, might beg to differ.
To the extent that the Military is an effective institution, its because it serves neo liberal, neo con, imperialist goals- how else can you explain 20 years of constant war, with a million lost lives; 6 trillion lost dollars; multiple failed states & no appreciable success? ( save profits for the Military Industrial, Contractor, Congressional, Complex & Fossil Fuel Companies).
The simple fact is that so-called public intellectuals like this writer are the problem. He works in a highly partisan think tank. Why should I trust him? His words right back at him -- he just wrote his autobiography.
"We lose faith in an institution when we no longer believe that it plays this ethical or formative role of teaching the people within it to be trustworthy."
A whole article on loss of faith in institutions and not a single mention about the sad reality that Fox News and the rest of the right wing propaganda machine has spent most of the last 35 years doing everything they possibly can to undermine the credibility of any institution that doesn't share their world view.
This isn't rocket science. Half of our country has been brainwashed into believing that good is bad, right is wrong, up is down, and black is white. Truth has become a matter of opinion. Self interest has prevailed over common good.
No good will come from any of this.
The reason that bad actors, pun intended, are so prevalent today is that not enough of us, Mr. Levin included, shames them by name. It isn't adequate or effective to point out nameless or institutional corruption; the individuals must be called out. Admittedly this is a much harder thing to do, the shameful will argue, deflect, deny, attempt both-sides-ism, but they must be named and
allowed no respite till they own their shame or are forced from their roles as institutional authorities. Virtually all of our Republican representatives should be subject to this disapprobation.
1
I blame social media and misinformation for breaking the bonds of trust.
We must make distinction between American cities and rural America. The mayors of most American cities have relative high approval ratings, 70-80%! Cities are well managed. Why? Multiculturalism is energy; it brings diversity of economic opportunities. The culture most cities enjoy is strong.
Not the same can be said about rural areas, once made of family farms. Communities were healthy and there was pride in the small town America.
That has changed. Cities grew stronger and many folks from rural communities went to live in the cities, weakening the communities they left behind.
This archaic construct is part of America's problem; the electoral system, how skewered is that?!
There are a host of troubling facts that plague rural America in resisting progress while it bolts down in a diminishing world and lost pride which then turns to Christian dogma and bigotry, to nativism and yes, racism...Who is to blame?
What did the bully pulpits rant about? How did the far right movement pick up inflammatory ideologies and trumpeted them, and the crazy conspiracy theories...?!
These troubling times, because Trump antagonizes; he clearly does not unite or heal America!
The US has believed all sorts of lies and delusions without any substantiation whatsoever since its inception. It is long overdue to grow up.
1
with the 24 hour news cycle we are more aware of how our institutions let us down:. This includes:
the military - though the writer refuses to criticize it, we know to be replete with alcoholism, sexual abuse, suicides, and high-priced waste;
the church - now well known to be covering up of sexual crimes - and not just in Catholicism - as well as clergy living it up;
corporations - blackmailing localities for ever more tax breaks or moving overseas for cheaper labor or to evade environmental rules;
unions - taking advantage, often of the public, whenever they have the power to do so, not to speak of corrupt officials;
sports - drug and other scandals, plus lack of loyalty of owners and players to the places they say they play for;
health care - predatory drug companies and their terrible ads, insurers and their army of paper pushers siphoning funds but providing no actual health care;
politicians - enough said!
1
1) Meritocrats took over our institutions and manipulated for personal agendas. 2) Dirty money in politics that makes point one possible.
1
I think it makes more sense to go back decades, looking at LBJ's blatant dishonesty about Vietnam, followed by Nixon corruption, and Reagan's illegal Iran/Contra scheme, and his whole smiling Hollywood style, where truth itself had no value, it was all about spinning a nice lie... and by then, we were learning real things about the underhanded dealings of the CIA and the FBI, and crazy conspiracy theories were starting to seem totally plausible. I think we lost faith in institutions because of actual dishonesty in high places. And then, sadly, instead of leading to a deeper grounding in truth, it led to the world of Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin and Donald Trump...
I cannot understand why the author is so surprised at what is happening today in America. Technology (including AI advances) has allowed for the exercise of individualism as the maximum representation of each one of us. Today, everything and everybody is a step in the ladder to success and if you do not make it, you become a bottomless receptacle of resentment and hate.
Welcome to the non-brave new world!
The logical consequence of the American dream is unbridled ambition. Ambition requires the manipulation and leverage of anything useful to further personal advancement. Add to this the enormous gap between national mythologies of exceptionalism and the everyday experiences of injustices and incompetence and you have a kind of seething disappointment and scepticism that dare not speak its name. Essentially, the American dream is a form of indoctrination into a dishonesty that is finding its own way to rebel.
1
I'm so tired of the word 'crisis' being used to define our time. It's always a crisis somewhere on Earth and it never won't be. The apocalypse comes every day. And yet I'm still here on my terrace smoking and drinking. America is in amazing shape -- prosperous, at peace, with record employment, record health numbers, et cetera. The world's violence levels are the lowest in centuries. Chill, Yuval. Have a joint.
Once again the instinctual genuflecting before the military so common nowadays. This is NOT Sparta.
The military is the most conspicuous exception and also the most unabashedly formative of our national institutions — molding men and women who clearly take a standard of behavior and responsibility seriously
The folks who consume politics 24/7, like a firehose, are only in the tails of our American bell curve. The people who write comments to a story like this are statistically insignificant. The bulk of Americans are still very interested in improving their neighborhood schools, churches, little leagues, book clubs, and we don’t believe that the crazy partisan shenanigans perpetrated by professional politicians desperate for cash contributions are normal. These politicians are just pushing antisocial acts bent on undermining our neighborhoods. And I have no doubt that the never-ending divisiveness is being amplified and exploited by interests that would like to see America harmed, like China and Russia.
Police were always harassing and killing minorities - Cell phones allowed us to see it.
Similarly in all realms, people in authority from priests to scientists to politicians ALWAYS abused their authority, imposed their "expertise" and morality on others and practiced hypocrisy in private.
Now that we live in a world without privacy, the hypocrisy in all realms is evident and unpunished. Instead of seeing the role models as corrupt and demanding better, the masses mimic the corruption of the role model, sensing they too can "get away with it."
Is it any wonder that several generations now that have been sent to public school to learn to pass tests but never taught the basics of critical thought can't see that the only thing they're getting away with is poverty, wage-slave labor, and ill-health? Oy vey.
1
This is rich: a representative of one of the ‘think tanks’ that has been a leader and beneficiary of the very de-institutionalization telling us not that he was wrong but a lament for the present without the apology?
These are the think tanks that took you down, de unionized, de educated, sent jobs out, told you lies about the future, too your pensions, your health care because? Bid’ness is Bid’ness is America.
The American Enterprise Institute telling me about lost trust in institutions when the think tanks rationalized trust out of society?
The gall!
1
One of the worst blunders of demagogue Trump is that we, the people, have lost the essential trust in democratic institutions. And this 'criminal' act shall last much beyond his misrule. Of course, Us not participating, and hopefully contributing, may be at fault as well, given the human propensity of corruptibility...if no one is looking, if the rules are trampled upon, when there is no public supervision. Additionally, we blinded ourselves in thinking that such a devious individual would change...once in power. It's like hoping your spouse will stop 'drinking' if loved well enough.
OMG, there is a camera in the dugout?
No really. This is another effort in false equivalence. There has been one party that has deliberately whined and attacked our American institutions. The Republican party is primarily responsible for allowing the shared American dream of a country for the people into a country for the oligarchs. Whenever money was on the line, the Republicans chose it.
Politically it makes sense. Given a diverse population, this message will appeal to a certain segment. Unfortunately, now it has led to governing from the minority and tribal behavior to protect their power. Supporting an obviously amoral, smug, corrupt, misogynistic, narcissistic, lying President has amply demonstrated that the Republicans didn't really believe in character, deficits, or moral leadership overseas. Growing up we knew that our political parties weren't perfect and that our leaders weren't perfect but at least they were capable of working together for trying, but not always succeeding, in creating the common good. But now we have one party for which the ends justify the means and that has broken our system.
But oddly enough, I still have faith in America and its citizens (both legal and illegal). The vast majority of us are better than this. We can break bread and hash out disagreements. We can work to a better future for our children. We will dispose of, by voting them out of office, the leaders who have divided us and have mocked the opposing side as less than human.
It's pointless to dwell on the collapse of trust in a society, because nobody will believe you anyway. Much like a junkie, a U.S. society addicted to the smack of extreme, uncompromising individualism will need to hit rock bottom, and from that low place, slowly rediscover the value of compromise and a mutually shared truth. I wager it will take U.S. society about two or three generations to flush out the present flood tide of superstitious thinking, delusional divisiveness, and extreme self-service and rediscover the value of social unity. If indeed such a shift happens at all, it will take longer than most of us will remain alive.
Start by raising the minimum wage to $14 an hour and then compel all businesses to treat employees as an asset rather than a nameless tool. Start prosecuting media that promotes bigotry and bogus political ideas as the FCC did from 1937 until 1988. Go after religious frauds and sadists hiding behind the internet. There are predators who enjoy destroying civil society. Educate children to what constitutes fraud and flimflam. Get serious about telling historical truth. The real issue is abuse of the first amendment.
I lived through Vietnam and Watergate with a reasonably unjaundiced view of our government. What changed that was our invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the financial crisis of 2008. In 2003, our government lied its way into an unnecessary war of choice, destroying a nation and countless lives. On the domestic front, a in 2008, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson leveraged his office to raid the treasury to a tune of $80 billion to make good AIG's idiotic credit default swaps issued to Paulson's former company, Goldman Sachs, and other big banks, thus insuring they did not suffer, though millions of ordinary Americans did. Now my hero is Edward Snowden.
2
Somewhere along the way people stopped looking for inspiration, and settled for entertainment. As a result we are watching the
birth of a fascist state and the death of a republic..including all those institutions you speak about.
Ultimately, we have to blame ourselves. We
allowed ruthless people to rule us. We allowed
people to define the terms of our lives such that
we serve them within all those institutions like
prisoners.
Land of the Free? We could be if we want it enough, but at the moment an awful lot of people just want to take refuge from their personal alienation and meaningless in the arms of an authoritarian.
He'll know what's best, right?
Perhaps redirecting the funds taken from the DOD to build 'The Wall" might help.
Reductionist capitalism as the bottom line for all things; a failure of ethics and morality. There is no room for any other human consideration, and the brand of capitalism is predatory; not based on integrity and providing a quality service.
The Trump administration is the necessary outcome of the logic in "movement conservative" Republicanism. It is a cancer that has spread for decades, and now we're here.
He’s wrong about the military still being honorable. Trump upended that when he started pardoning soldiers for war crime convictions.
1
It might have to do with being lied to - or systematically misled - for the past half century and more, and being handed over to the corporations, to do with as they choose. Ingenuous no more, Americans are now justifiably cynical. This is generally less true for the undereducated and the over-religious, but the rest of us are tired of smirking politicians and weapons of mass distraction.
1
Probably one of the best articles I've read in the NYT in a long time.
America was never a free society for all when it was founded, to pretend it was can only come from a place of privilege. There have been Americans who the system has never worked for, and never had faith. Only now, when it is affecting enough White Americans, does anyone really care.
It's not time to rebuild America to something it once was, it's time to build it in a new way. A way that actually, truly, works for everyone.
Very ominous indeed! So we are to view the military as our potential saving model - then perhaps our saving institution. Has the AEI set a course to condition the general population to the desirability of military rule? Wow. Thank you, Republican voters for bringing us to this point :(
Corruption, capitalism and cronyism: the three C’s unchecked serve to erode society.
Yes, we have lost faith in all institutions. Including the media.
CNN had this horrible person asking questions at the last Dem Party "debate" and she essentially called Bernie Sanders a liar.
Currently, there are ongoing demonstrations and essentially riots in France that have gone on for over a year and they are serious demos. The French workers know what they are doing and they are going to win. American workers need to think about this. Where is the institution we call the media on reporting on this? Do you see it on CNN and the other main stream media. It is a critical event. So the institutions become money makers with weak values and that is why we have lost faith in them.
The real problem is that Americans and
our institutions have traditionally existed in a universe of national mythology and the myths have been stripped away during the last 20 years. American exceptionalism, we’ve found, does not stand up to scrutiny. Police are not the paragons we had hoped for. The general officer class in the military has been consistently lying to the public for the last 19 years — and learned nothing about that from the VietNam debacle. The largest Christian organization has engaged in a worldwide cover-up of systematic child abuse and rape for the last 100 years or more. Congressional dysfunction is merely a symptom of the constitution being outmoded. I’ll stop there. And at the same time, instead of rolling up our sleeves to fix our institutions within actual reality, we’ve let ourselves become an entertainment culture that lets us lie back and be distracted from the real world.
How tiring it is to hear these "American societal tapestry is broken, Americans have lost faith" nonsense. Really. Where I live, people STILL help each other out, have potluck street parties, fundraisers for cancer victims, etc. And, no, we do NOT talk politics at the dinner tables. The liberal coastal mandarins need to take periodic trips into the "in-between" country.
1
What role do whistle blowers play in Levin's analysis, I wonder? Because sometimes the institution is the problem. But then again, he's coming from the AEI, a neo-con organization that advocates for wars of choice and unregulated capitalism, so perhaps we know the answer already.
It was always strange the way Americans were so religious, in their own way. Some of the Iranians are really religious too, in a different way, but their own way too.
Some Iranians hate everything that is American, or really even everything that isn’t talking about Allah or whoever.
Some Americans hate everything that isn’t apple pie, football, or « Bless Jesus, brother ».
The Iranians don’t seem to be doing so well either. I wonder if the two issues are related, in some cosmic or not so cosmic way.
Don't forget the plague of for profit institutions, corporations and business. Any moral and social responsibility has long been abolished there. Except for the fake green and #metoo trends that are good PR.
Thank you, Mr. Levin!
"Send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee!" John Donne.
- DOD misleading the public about Vietnam. (Unfortunately, repeated in subsequent wars.)
- Watergate
- Conservatives, starting I guess with Ronald Reagan, steadily campaigning on the idea that “government is the problem“ for 40 years (an argument that conveniently supported lower taxes and increasing the wealth gap)
- Scandals within the church, especially the Catholic Church. Hard to overstate the impact of this. (“If you can’t trust the institution of the church, which institution can you trust?”)
-Other institutions: Olympic doping, Major league baseball, the Boy Scouts, cheating in FIFA. (I am sure I’m missing a few.)
- mainstreaming of unapologetically biased journalism. Let’s be honest, Fox News has done more than any other institution to compromise journalistic integrity.
- Social media sends misinformation into hyperdrive, and refuses to stop bad actors who use lies to manipulate public opinion
-Eventually, these institutional failures so thoroughly erode confidence that stage is set for election of a president who ignores the very concept of truth, right v. wrong, ethics, and morality. A man for whom distrust in institutions is a platform and sowing distrust and fear is a strategy; simultaneously derides the integrity of our electoral system (“Millions of fake votes“) while welcoming the corruption of it (welcomes foreign interference).
Faith in shared ideas and institutions is the glue that holds society together. We either protect these or our else.
The "collapse of our confidence in institutions — public, private, civic and political" is Steve Bannon's stated political goal and Donald Trump and the GOP's political platform.
Everything is corrupt. Broken. Fake news. Alternative facts. Drain the swamp. We're losing America! We're constantly under threat. And our current form of incompetent government can do nothing to save us..
Reinforced 24/7 by cooperative conservative media. Nothing to fear but fear it's self has become fear everything!
But the opposition never presents a viable alternative.
The message is, you're better off own your own.
Is it any wonder Americans have lost confidence?
‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’
Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947
Why isn't this author celebrating the successes of his small government, low regulation policies, like Boeing, Wells Fargo, the opioid producers?
Mx Levin -- "Subsume yourself for the good of the institution; then the institution will ensure that you thrive".
Life lesson -- "Don't love something that can't love you back; then you won't be so badly hurt when that something sells you out".
And institutions always, always sell their members, their believers, out.
Americans still have faith in their pumped Ponzi "economy", so there's that.
Excuse me, but someone from AEI complaining about loss of faith in American institutions after near 40 years of the new right saying government is the problem through Ronald Reagan, saying greed is good through Ronald Reagan, selling arms to Iraq to fund right-wing guerillas in Central America, turning politics into partisan blood-sport through Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay, lying to the American people to go to war in Iraq, and finally trashing just about any sense of morality and decency under Donald Trump? Really, are you kidding me?
Jim Roberts, Piedmont CA.
I was completely in agreement with this article until Trump became the topic and it became another blame Trump rant.
Trump is an undesirable.
We have a crop of Democratic politicians who have enriched themselves on the Beltway, are owned by major corporations and vote for any war that comes along. They are as corrupt and base as Trump, my friends, but wearing the "correct" clothing.
Perhaps it all seems so out of control due to it being so pronounced in the media. Since media knows that fear attracts viewers and readers, they can pander to that inclination. Think about the people you interact with daily; are they like these egotistical monsters profiled on websites, news programs, articles?
Interesting to note that the title of Mr Levin’s new book mentions everyone but Corporate America in the renewed commitment to Institutions. An oversight, I presume.
Perhaps the issue is we are all focussed on what we can earn in 3 months so that we do not have to worry beyond 3 months. It seems this philosophy has moved from the corporate boardroom to the individual with dire consequences.
The demise of institutions is a reflection of our aspirations and our behaviour.
While I despair at the current state of affairs, we can change things. It takes involvement.
If you want better candidates, then make your voice heard. It doesn't even have to take much time. Instead of complaining, go to caucus where you are interacting with your fellow Americans, your neighbors. Elect delegates or become a delegate. Delegates go to assembly to choose the candidates. It matters from selection of your county commissioner to president. And it only costs your time.
It matters. Make your voice heard and put the the best candidates on the ballot, not just ones that are insider party favorites. We can make the change.
Levin writes: "The military is the most conspicuous exception and also the most unabashedly formative of our national institutions — molding men and women who clearly take a standard of behavior and responsibility seriously." This certainly being true, introducing national service, including more than in the military, would be a huge step forward.
1
If performance means to "win by whatever means necessary", yes, that is what the platforms of all forms (social media, application platforms, Congress, the Presidency, markets, monopolies, etc) have become.
There are no PRINCIPLES behind any of it. They have become the expression of the very worst of humanity's nature. The world has become unmoored from the things that prevented the worst outcomes in prior generations.
The character comes first, then the performance. And I haven't lost faith in myself, and a lot of people can say that. What we have lost faith in is leaders who don't do the right thing, and instead just play one-up with competitors instead of working on solving (not creating) problems within their civic domain. They don't talk to the right people, like talking to jailbirds if the leaders are concerned about jail and prison overcrowding. They don't talk to addicts about how to get them off drugs and stop drug trafficking. They don't talk to drivers about why some places have more accidents than others. Maybe the cause is structures and shrubberies blocking the view of what's coming from around the corner, or streets with traffic guidance paint that's worn off, or some common types of problems the drivers themselves are having. Politicians don't talk to the longer-term jobless about their difficulties. They don't go to the source, diagnose the problem and solve it. If they did, we among other things would have a real war on drugs with bombs falling down the chimneys of cartel bosses.
Many of today's problems started with a decline in a single profession, journalism. In the 1970s local television news began to emphasize sensationalism instead of reporting on important issues to a community. Yellow tape stories (crime, disasters) replaced city hall beat reporting. Ratings went up and news divisions became profit centers, even as public trust went down. Twenty years later Roger Ailes was able to build Fox News with expertise in the new journalism built in local markets. Today we see the result, not only in journalism, but in all walks of life. It's not surprising since the same people who report on the other institutions and their audience have now been trained all of us to expect controversy and conflict, not facts and understanding.
When the history of this time is written, journalism will be seen as one of the key contributors to our decline.
The influence of our Machiavellian president on the practices and attitudes that used to govern our culture are the principals that are weakening our nation now.
1
Amazing how many comments include some form of “I agree, but...”. And therein lies while things will only worsen.
Yes, this idea needs much attention. Please consider adding a chapter about the reality that America is now too often shaped by propaganda and not often enough by truth. (Incidentally, NYT's public commitment to truth is one of my favorite things.)
1
Too big of a leap to tie it to "mom has to work", you have to raise yourself? Un(mis)-guided youth never stood a chance.
At this time, we really need at least 67 Senators to ask themselves what they should be doing there!
1
We did not loose faith, we were and are betrayed.
Let’s explore. Americans have been seduced by gadget culture which has absorbed our daily lives and disconnects us from community. By Community I mean tactile and face to face interactions with the world outside our living rooms and the use of our senses to navigate reality. Then comes our political parties and their intent on capitalizing on the us against them mindset. They stoke division, they accentuate our division by demonizing certain ethnicities and use repetition, innuendo,and bombast to spread lies. Morality, faithfulness, human bonding are things of the past. Reading and learning have somehow become elite activities rather than tools of understanding the world around us. God forbid that one know something that doesn’t come from social media or television, both tools to keep us stupid. Lost is our connection to wildness. Wonder how many trees the average person can identify by their leaves and habitats? The list goes on, but I’ve made my point. The cheapening of education and a sense of wonder about the world have left us bereft of reality and conscience.
We elected a man who’s lack of principle, morals and basic decency has permeated into the very soul of our nation, and exposed us for what we are. We have only ourselves to blame for fascination with all things “Kardashian”, in which talentless and vapid people influence everything we do. When a reality tv “Star” is your president, you get what you deserve.
Take it from Eleanor Roosevelt, who said "No one can make you feel inferior without your permission".
I agree with most of the points in this essay, but would amplify that much of social media has helped this along. We now belong to “cul-de-sacs” of thought, personality, gender, interests, orientation, economic status and myriad other “micro societies”. We are no longer willing to get out of our groups to hear what others think, to disagree agreeably, to not get caught up in the constant “argument of the day” because we are expected to have an opinion on every little matter (I could care less what the Duke and Duchess of another country decide to do with their lives, for example).
It’s important to note, also, this isn’t “100 percent” of the country. Many volunteer their time, give charitably with no expectation of “return on investment”, vote, keep up with the news, and raise healthy children. “If it bleeds it leads” for news organizations though and that doesn’t just pertain to local news or a car accident. Trump was getting mountains of coverage during 2015, in fact, with TV news showing an empty podium “awaiting his arrival” because news producers knew he was going to say something wild.
We’ve also allowed higher education to turn away from liberal arts to becoming mostly “business schools”. “You need a degree to get a good job” the saying goes. Why isn’t it “you need a degree to understand the classics and how they inform our lives today”. What kind of a leader would Mark Zuckerberg (or Bill Gates for that matter) be had he finished college?
"Given my role here, how should I behave?"
This is an essential and existential question we should all be asking ourselves repeatedly.
It seems the republican answer is "I should behave with greed"
or "I should behave with hatred for_____" - fill in the blank- women, non Christians, people of color, LGBTQ people, liberals etc).
This article is a real home run! You've read the signs well, and have a good grip on the problem.
For the first time in my life, I have doubted the legitimacy of our government, and our higher education institutions (where I am an educator). I even doubt sports teams, assuming there are athletes who are on performance enhancing drugs. I doubt religious institutions like 'Mega Churches' or the Catholic Church where greed and sex abuse has proliferated. I doubt the Hollywood elite who I see as pretentious and self-serving when they speak about "important issues". And I especially doubt our president who doesn't lead but threatens and bullies. I have become very cynical...
1
OMG! I’m so sick of these sky-is-falling pieces, decrying the failures of our social institutions, our churches, our government, etc., etc. We are a nation of some 330 million souls with another 15 million or so illegal souls. On Sundays throughout this country you will find thousands upon thousands of families attending their church services and meeting in community. Is the political partisanship rabid at the moment? You bet. But has it ever been different? Sometimes, and sometimes a lot worse, e.g. post Civil War. Today there is a small percentage of our citizens struggling with opioids and yes, even suicide. Not too long ago it was alcoholism, LSD, weed. And some families were destroyed. But the fact is that most days most Americans get up and go to work. They come home to their families, however they may be. They enjoy their weekends off. They participate in their communities and churches. They argue politics, religion, whatever. The problem is that the ordinariness of our daily lives does not make very compelling copy.
1
People lose trust in institutions because institutions are inherently corrupt. Particularly corrupt is this newly institutionalized Trumpian distrust of institutions.
The only real institution governing the USA's world view is the Profit Motive, aka Greed. Greed begets corruption.
The Reaganomic ethos of a society based purely on self-interest was the irrevocable blunder that corrupted all prior modes of civic unity & community.
The author's beef with pursuit of personal celebrity at the expense of self-sacrificing participation in societal institutions, is itself a product of an institutionalized greed-motive:
Pursuit of Celebrity is a malady manufactured by industries profiteering from staged idolatry of stardom. But the false-idols of the entertainment industry are just actors, personas manufactured by marketers.
The institution in the Reagan model that was supposed to temper rampant self-interest & maintain societal ethics, morality & community, was to be Evangelical Biblicalism. But the Church, as we know, is a historically corrupt institution.
Instead of biblical charity & love, we got celebrity mega-church pastors in private jets making millions preaching 'Prosperity Gospel'.
So we're left with only greed & corruption: A military corrupted by its industrial-complex war-profiteers which produces only despair & suicides; a corrupt, greed-based religion-industry; a judicial/political system now corrupted by the spawn of Reagan's greedy 'Me Generation' disease.
2
Trust the military? Absolutely not. Not when Edward Gallagher is acquitted, and sexual abuse at every level is repeatedly ignored. No, the military lost our trust long ago.
2
The government has lost my trust because of its actions. Wall Street has lost my trust due to its actions...
Skip the psychoanalysis. I see what is going on and just don't trust it.
2
The loss of confidence is our institutions was deliberately engineered by ultra-rich people who didn’t want pay for them. The classic here is still Jane Mayer’s “Dark Money”.
The Koch organization spent decades funding candidates and think tanks to instill the idea the governments can do nothing, so that their personal and corporate fortunes would be protected. Trump is the front man, but Pence, Pompeo, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh—as examples—are their guys.
1
The current president* is an exemplar of this situation. Lies, lies, more lies, and no accountability. That’s the way our government has been run since...
1980: when America turned to an actor for leadership.
1
From second string quarterback Colin Kaepernick sitting unnoticed on a bench to sideline kneeling during the Nation Anthem seen nationwide on NFL Sunday afternoon TV to a giant Nike billboard dominating Union Square in San Francisco, yeah I guess I see what you mean.
Excellent article. Thank you.
Well, it’s called an I-pad. And an I-phone. And a SELF-ie. We have a president who says “I alone can fix it.” Me, Me,Me. My profile, my brand, my influence. There is no us. What do we expect?
1
An important question: how did our institutions fail? Cleverly the AEI answer starts by misdirecting our attention. The failure of institutions is NOT and American problem. It is a western one.
Rupert Murdock's profound cynicism infected all institutions. "I got mine, Jack. Of course I cheated; everybody does. are you going to let Them cheat you out of yours, or will you beat them to it?"
And, yes, Corax, I identify the author with the institution he is associated with, because he speaks their argument. He mouths a dangerous and odious message. I believe him to be smarter than that, and therefore not innocent.
I disagree with the cynicism conservatives embody. I think we are all better off expecting everybody to just do the right thing next chance we get.
I hope next time Levin will speak closer to truth,
Simple answer: Our government has lied to the American people for decades, from Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, to name a few. How can you continue to have faith in a government that lies, especially now, given the lies, lack of decency and hate under Trump? Time for a positive change gere.
I want to 'see' how Yuval's prescriptions are 'adopted and followed' at Boeing - a spectacular failure of an American institution in 2019.
Excuses, excuses.
It is conservative propaganda backed by oligarchs that have led to loss of faith in our institutions.
Your arguments are nonsense about loss of social cohesion.
1
because we all have so much. but it looks like everyone else has more with less effort
I think 'It's the economy stupid' sums it up. Reagan started the descent toward 'rugged individualism', it continued with this Clinton mantra, and manifested intself again when Bush asked Americans to 'go back shopping'. The deification of the quantitative: my bank account, how many likes I have, test scores, etc. has left the qualitative (people and values) behind.
Wealth, more of everything, brands, and selfies are the new institutions. Trump is the natural result. Hopefully he; by complete accident, helps the west realize that not just Trumpism, but selfism itself is toxic, cold, lonely and unsustainable.
Less 'I' and more 'we' equals less 'them' a new 'us'.
The problem is, in part, driven by the profoundly empty souls of today’s leaders including Trump, McConnell, Bezos, the Kochs, the Walton family and others who will exploit us all as they search for they know not what. They are so empty that nothing can fill them, so they take, dominant and exploit hoping for fulfillment but none will come and society will be destroyed as they try to feel anything other than their ugliness.
The Institutions have betrayed their mission and the people.
To understand this history, read for NY Times reporter Chris Hedges' book: "Death of the Liberal Class"
"How did Americans lose faith in everything? Hypocrisy: Everything was lying.
1
Liberal ideology has dismantled the cultural norms which kept us together at the expense of social justice. Welcome to the brave new world.
2
It's not that American's "lost faith"; it's that they put all their faith in Jesus, and Elvis.
This is poppycock!
We...are our institutions. Who we are...creates and facilitates our institutions.
This is an intellectual spin on the an emotional issue that is running our society and choking off the American Spirit...
...the belief that we are victims. Now we are "victims" of our very own institutions? No.
We are becoming a "victim society," and those at the top - political, technology, and business - are perpetuating it.
The more people who believe they are victims...the more power for the few.
This is about power. Some folks got a taste of big money and big power in the 1990's and early 2000's...and they're not going to go back.
And unless and until we as individuals - in our personal lives, in our own communities - and as a people stand up, step up, and speak up to take back our power...we will be a devolving society.
I wonder if the TImes would be interested in a little something I’ve been thinking about writing on thinktanks such as API, the guys who really brought sophistry up to modern times. Seriously: these guys have massively helped convince people that ideas don’t count unless they’ve been monetized, which is what thinktanks are for.
1
People only ever trusted institutions with blind eyes and deaf ears. With the absence of myth (it's all superstition) and "God" (more superstition), institutions stand somewhere outside the forest of Arden where all the action is. America is the land of the individual. The one myth left standing.
Levin is wrong to say that people do not understand mistrust of institutions comes from. It clearly comes from a society and institutions that are rigged to the benefit of the most wealthy.
After WWII, the nation understood that it owed a debt of gratitude for all who served, not just the officer corp. Hence the GI Bill that sent common people to college and the FHA that allowed home ownership. Unions were powerful enough to demand and receive pay increases when productivity and profits rose. Contrast that with the post-Reagan capitalism that exists only for the benefit of the shareholders and top executives.
At its core, this is not an economic problem at all. It is, as Tony implied, something far deeper. The lack of trust, the failing institutions, and the demise of structure and family are all related to the worship of individual happiness regardless of societal strength.
A society to survive has to have shared core values that are instilled in individuals during their development to adulthood. These values may limit individual freedom for the long term good of the whole.
It is imperative for us to identify the human behaviors that strengthen and weaken the whole society, make them our values, instill them, and recognize that some individuals will be restricted by those values from personal happiness. They may suffer, but suffering is part of being alive.
Another point that makes society today different from all societies before 1900 is that death is not ever present in our daily lives. We fear and loath death, instead of accepting it as normal and inevitable. We treat it , not as something that can happen at any time to anyone, but as something to be prevented at all costs. In the end, Christianity (I can't speak to other religions) is based on human death and its effects on the living and on society. Because of the constant presence of death at all ages, a vlaue structure was built to alleviate the pain of the living from loss of others to death that was meant to strengthen society as a whole.
It all began with Reagan and the line,"government IS the problem." Republicans (and the AEI) have been tearing down every effort to collectively solve our common problems for 40 years now, calling government corrupt and inefficient and calling government employees "jack-booted thugs." They have fomented anti-tax revolts, saying that we should be able to spend all of our money as we want, forget about contributing to projects that help the society as a whole. They have spread the gospel of Adam Smith, that we should be self-interested individuals looking out for only our own welfare, and everything will somehow magically work out, because "the invisible hand" will take care of it all. Is it really a surprise that this concerted campaign has brought us to a crisis of institutions and an elevation of individualism over the common good? Ultimately, this benefits the giant corporations, because, if we can't trust our institutions and our fellow human beings to help us in any way, to work with us to create a better society, then we are forced to buy everything we need on the "free" market. And if we can't afford it, it is somehow our fault and we don't deserve any help.
My Republican brother can't express enough hate of Democrats. He claims they will kill our economy and that they are bad people. He is filled with Fox fueled anger and vitriol and firmly believes it is coming on both sides. I try to tell him that it is not to no avail.
The impeachment hearings exemplify this. The Democrats are trying to make a case for impeachment and the Republicans are outraged that they are doing it. They don't try to defend Trump. The Senators are so worried about keeping their jobs and Trump's wrath that they sacrifice all morality, justice and truth and stay in line.
The scorched earth politics of Newt Gingrich vilifying the opposition and instilling hate, fear and loathing of one American to another was part of the germination that ultimately led to Trump. Fox has deliberately twisted and manipulated the news toward that end. The Republicans have been actively pursuing this with the Tea party and the Freedom caucus and McConnell escalated it. And now here we are.
The Democrats are culpable in their own way but not nearly to the extent of Republicans. It started with politics.
1
Mr. Yuval's forthcoming book will discuss reviving the American Dream. It will be interesting to see if 'dream' is defined by the free market winner take all positions AEI seems to have championed.
It saddens me that my America is now nothing more than a banana republic, a second rate place to live. But it might be time for a citizen's lobby. A well-funded and fearless lobby that does for citizens what political leaders have so willingly abdicated.
This is about money. The leaders of our institutions have failed us in many ways: You can't get health insurance even if you work in a hospital. This is work in a HOSPITAL! They either hire you per-diem or cut your hours to withhold insurance.
Take a look at drivers. They are driving as if to kill you. Take a look at NFL football players who relish their touchdowns with a dance in front of the camera. The owners love it.
I have worked as a production manager who had to stop a production assistance from filming the scene on his smartphone so he can post it to show off. My role in that situation was to behave in a way to enforce privacy protection for the client.
With social media it is all about 'me' and 'mine'. There are serious entitlement issues at play here. We have let the cat out of the bag for many decades. We have not trained our young people how to behave as they grow up and assume more responsibility. Everything advertised, from clothing to business to pastimes has become childish, as if it is aimed child-consumers. Money, the bottom line has taken over. Try to change that.
1
@Phil M: Nobody who mentions "black pipe" internet with compulsory licensing lasts long in the media business.
1
Baloney. Institutions don’t “mold” character. Experience produces character and institutions are very often part of the problem, preventing experience. Freedom is what provides character—it’s not something given to us.
Ultimately, this becomes an argument for an “originalist” interpretation of the Constitution. To repeat: baloney.
Ever since the country was mesmerized by Ronald Reagan after he declared that “The government is not the solution, the government is the problem”, that was the time the American people started the doubt of institutions. When a thug like trump moved into the people’s house every institution is in great danger, because that is what thugs do: they destroy the norms, they disrespect of what they have not.
1
Oh please, I want to throw up in my mouth. The author is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Conservative think tanks and lobbyists have been the driving force behind a corrupt congress. They exist to prop up the plutocratic business interests in this country. We have lots faith in our "institutions" because the power concentrated in the wealthy institutions is rotting our society.
You can lay the destruction of our government institutions at the grave of "Saint" Ronnie Reagan. In his first inaugural address in 1981, Ronnie said: "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem" Reagan was a hypocrite, for he was on the government payroll for 16 years, as governor of California and then President. Of course this sentiment is the Republican Party's cover for using government to enrich the wealthy, give uncontested power to Corporations, and crush the poor and working class. This charade has worked well for the Republican Party.
1
An interesting lament dripping with hypocrisy...
I think what the author is really whining about, in the fashion of conservatives who, when caught red-handed, turn into the most appalling ninnies, full of self pity and sanctimoniousness, is that WE ARE ON TO THEM.
And for this, in my opinion, we have the internet to thank. Because now, thanks to the ubiquity of smart phone cameras and the ability to immediately upload content, or better yet, streaming live, we are able to document the egregious violations of all those good things he complains we are losing.
We are cynical and don't believe our institutions anymore? Imagine that.
Just today this paper reports that THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES blurred out signs hostile to Trump from the first women's march back in 2017. How dare they??
The thing is, the National Archives is supposed to be the record keeper, not the editor, of our national history. Just as the Education department is to serve our students everywhere, not just private and charter school students, etc.
Our institutions have been hijacked by destructive grifter agents empowered by a malignant fool in the white house. Count on someone from the American Enterprise Institute to complain that we caught on to it.
1
One thought: when did everything become a brand” to be marketed? Perhaps this mentality has something to do with our current state. Seems everything is for sale to the highest bidder and if you don’t have an angle then you are a chump. Decency no longer seems important.
1
PBS “American Experience” has done a program on Joe McCarthy which explains how he broke down institutions by claiming Communism within, destroying the reputations of some innocent people and ending trust in American institutions until he came to the US Army and Eisenhower turned the tables. McCarthyism then became the dangerous “ism.” WatchTrumps mentor Roy Cohn, assistant to McCarthy,as he learns the tactics of intimidation,later to be learned by trump. Not the only similarity to now. Con men and sociopaths hate institutions because they make takeover more difficult. Lies and innuendo are difficult to spread to a cohesive team.
1
Mr. Levin has said in one editorial what David Brooks tries unsuccessfully to say in dozens.
"Attorney General" Barr would say it's because we've fallen away from the Catholic Church. But: an institution which cannot perpetuate itself is not credible and not worthy of faith.
A “scholar” at the American Enterprise Institute . . . .
Isn’t that an oxymoron?
No need to wonder why we’ve lost faith. It’s due to organizations like the AEI . . . .
1
We have decontented everything in American life. All in the name of capitalism. Until we transition to post-capitalist world there will be no “rebuilding” of American institutions as they are all subject to the iron laws of money.
2
While it is very valid to see the collapse of institutional influence on citizens, it might be equally argued that the "individual" has collapsed. The Self, regarded for many centuries as a Romantic Subject, a vaunted ethereal spirit. Hamlet said it best: "What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel..." This conception of the Individual human being no longer serves us. After Buchenwald, Hiroshima, and countless visible historical atrocities, the human being has become "the quintessence of dust." The Subject's fall from grace is the cause of such institutional failures. Human beings have become worthless, being human nothing special. We create institutions that reflect our own sense of self-worth. If the worker's life blood and time on Earth is worth $7.00 an hour, how can such a subject feel good about being human? If you feel your life is worthless, you don't work hard to restrict the use of guns that can easily massacre you and your family. If the Individual doesn't get good health care, how can that person feel worthy of happiness and life? If you crush the spirit of the Individual Subject what you have left are ghostly institutions that serve only themselves.
1
Institutions are composed of individuals and are necessary social structures. The American identity is not so much patchwork as it is nonexistent. We don't have thousands of years of cathedrals and tombs to evoke culture; instead we are and will always be one of the newest nations, and must depend on abstract cultural symbols like the American flag.
If you mean to propose that the systemic rot of our country, manifsted naturally by Trump, is due to some identity crisis or lack of individuality, then your views are misfounded. Gaze into a mirror, pierce the veil of your status quo beliefs. Do you drive a car? Do you consume animals? Its a whole lot easier to blame institutions than your personal failings. #BeBest
LBJ, Nixon, the War in Vietnam.
1
We became a nation of brats. It started with Dr. Spock. Remember when children were allowed to figure out things for themselves based on what life was handing them.
The reason why Americans lost faith in everything? For me, personally, the answer is as clear as it is conclusive. It's due to the rise of the modern GOP and everything they represent, the cult of Fox News where everything is spin, and a thousand lies a day coming from the most morally and spiritually bankrupt White House in history. Worst of all? That so many lemmings are willing to follow along.
2
American doubt in our government was intentionally sown by so-called “dark money,” as chronicled by journalist Jane Mayer in her book about private concerted interference in government, education, the courts and media.
3
Just try getting a Federal authority (DOL, DOJ, FBI, IRS, INS, DHS, etc.) to investigate a legal violation, and you'll get hit with a brick wall. Even local authorities will give you the run-around. Okay, you say, contact your representative with a complaint and you'll hit the same wall. Laws, it seems, are in place to punish the hapless minions and to reward the connected.
If you see something, and say something, you may be in for a surprise: by the mere fact that you report a crime may make you a wanted criminal.
1
There has been too much bad faith, too many broken promises, and nonstop lies explained away as “jokes” or “alternative facts.”
These aren’t limited to the current administration, but have increased exponentially under Trump, including
Russian assistance in securing his election and the increased use of social media to spread lies and slander recalling “The Manchurian Candidate”.
The extremely cynical ways Trump and his minion Republican cohorts have exploited the country’s natural, human,
and financial resources to implement policies promoting his greed and bigotry and benefitting the wealthy at the expense
of the poor and his gullible evangelical supporters, and the betrayal of this country’s founding principles of justice for all
and a beacon of freedom and hope to the world through his cruel treatment of refugee children and families have been
shocking, shameful, and egregious. Trump has usurped the legislative and judicial branches’ prerogatives, assuming dictatorial
power to threaten, extort, and assassinate promoting his own objectives. Who would not become cynical watching these events unfold?
Conservatives spent 40 years teaching that the individual was paramount to any and all groups, and now they mourn the death of social institutions. They sowed the wind...
3
Bruce Cannon Gibney nailed it in his data-driven book "A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America". Read it, and I promise everything will make sense. What's more, you'll realize there is a rational reason to have hope for the future.
Look at the Vietnam War - which many Americans remember clearly. The government knew for years the war was unwinnable but kept drafting young men to fight & die for a fantasy win against "communism." It appears our entire government was in on this con. After LBJ, who knew the war was hopeless, Richard Nixon sent Anna Chenault to Paris to disrupt the Vietnam Peace Talks to ensure his election. LBJ knew this but didn't reveal what Nixon has done. Nixon was a traitor - & he continued the war for 5 more years. More than 50,000 young Americans died for a lie in Vietnam.
George Bush did the same thing in Iraq. Another vicious, pointless war of choice by a president determined to lie & hoodwink the American people - with help from the intelligence agencies.
Shameful. Why would Americans in their 60s believe the government is honest?
Also: statistics claim 1 in 4 girls & women in this country are sexually assaulted at some time in their lives. We've learned through #metoo sexually assault may be woefully underreported. Most women don't report assault & when they do, often aren't believed. We know there are thousands of unprocessed rape kits. For women & girls, it's normal to be hounded, victimized, harassed & assaulted as early as childhood & they rarely receive acknowledgement they've been harmed, much less justice.
Vietnam veterans. Iraq veterans. Women for whom sexual discrimination &violence are lifelong occurrences.
Ask them why they've lost faith.
2
I submit our brains are affected by hundreds of years of Marxist critical theory on the left and right wing shenanigans opposite. Our politics haven’t changed all that much since the 1930s. Nationalism, cultural Marxism, greed are still doing their damage. Our culture is mostly vulgar boiling down to sex and violence. The media is as always sensationalist. Hollywood is commercial propaganda. Religion is seemingly irrelevant in a hyper consumerist society. History is pretty much impossible to teach considering it invokes nightmares mostly.
Yes, I guess if you are white, things may seem a bit bleaker. Not sure faith in our institutions back during the Vietnam era were so much better, and ya there was that thing called Watergate. The silent majority and hard hats beating up college student protesters. Don't get me wrong, we need to take action and go after capitalist greed, but please, let's not think these are the worst of times. Just saying.
But Trump turned what used to be a common grounds of understanding and respect for institutions on its head.
He unilaterally and mercilessly attacked the FBI, all intel agencies, and MSM press as "enemies of the people".
He was allowed to lob insults, defame, and outright falsehoods nonstop around the clock, with impunity.
And not only is he getting away with it all, but he also has an army of ready and willing enablers to edge him on for more. He has an awesome mouthpiece called FIX News that hellbent on justifying just about every falsehood he spews.
And we are utterly hapless to do anything about it. Except maybe just vent this comment.
1
Anticipating the very hostile response but I think someone should say it. The one thing that has been conclusively proven in the last 50 years is that ethics & Morality are ABSOLUTELY & UTTERLY IRRELEVANT to the winners in our era.
Ranging from our "President" who wouldn't know an ethic if it bit him on the ankle. To his main competitor in the recent election who was telling Bankers one thing (For 350K a pop) & the voters another. Not to mention a company whose motto is supposedly don't be evil that decided doing business in the PRC was important then doing good or evil. Not mention the recent proof the best way to get into a good school is bribery. Not to mention a "Social Contract" Our political, Business & Academic elites have used has toilet paper. A simple question, What's to trust? It is obvious that ethics, morality & Trust are has passed has the longsword.
Note for those who think that it was all the Republicans that the Democrats are the purveyors of Truth, Justice, & goodness! Have you noticed that EVERY single former President Democrat & Republican has amply rewarded by Wallstreet after they leave office? Not to mention everyone in Congress might arrive poor but pretty much all leave ricH? Not to mention it was Democrat that finished off the Social contract & the middle class when he signed NAFTA & admitted China to the WTO? Trust, Ethics, & Morality? LOL! No one successful these days has any of them! Why lie??
1
Contemporary America seems like a big, roiling social experiment in hand-wringing, blamestorming, victim-cultivation; in hypocrisy, fraud, corruption, tribalism, inertia, greed, and thuggery; in healthcare and pharmaceutical terrorism, betrayal, fear, anxiety, and indifference; in class warfare, racism, psychopathy, self-aggrandizement, and deep-fakery, etc. Breakdown? Check. Decline? Check. Loss of meaning? Check.
Gee, you say, tell me something I don’t know. I wish I could.
There have always been abusers of power - and democracy has always offered many opportunities for abuses. What is different now is that lackeys, minions and enablers have been been been given greater impunity.
IT'S TIME NOW, to help and support your family, your community and your government. We are disconnected from one another because so many of us are trying to survive. In the last 30 years I have left the employment of 4 Fortune 500 companies and 2 privates because they have business models in place to take extreme advantage of the common folk. $ isn't everything but our capitalistic system MUST change so $ is distributed fairly. History shows anarchy ensues when we don't value each other.
1
How can you have faith when the lies, deception and incompetence constantly ooze out of the White House and are condoned and supported by the GOP lackeys. And on a lesser note how can most hard-working folks have faith in a president who weekly jets off to his private retreat at the expense of the American taxpayer. Talk about hypocrisy, fraud and arrogance - why don't most people of faith in this administration and what carnage they have created in one presidential term. Give me a break!
America contains within it the seeds of its own destruction. Our celebration of individualism, self-promotion, and personal enrichment over everything else selects for a type of individual who ends up in powerful leadership positions across all of our institutions. One need look no further than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to see the kind of destruction that ensues when that type of person assumes a position of power. Those who play by the rules are jaded by the rewards that accrue to those who don't. Forgive us for losing faith when we see that paying taxes, obeying the law, and treating other people with respect is for suckers.
1
Not one grounded word
The American Enterprise Institute has done its best to bring on this sorry state of affairs.
And saying abracadabra three times does no good just as saying institution hundreds of times does no good. But it is a living for a precious few such as those at AEI.
2
Why shouldn't Trump and Republicans use the Presidency and Congress as a platform for their lies? Is it different than what people do at the American Enterprise Institute? Shopping lies to fools is the capitalism of ideas, and you're open for business.
Mammon, lucre, greed, selfish desire and gain; aren't these the American Dream? We've been sold 'freedom' to take as much as possible, using lawyers and lobbyists, bought-politicians and judges, just as sure as we're taken away from ideas of 'community', 'equality', a 'greater good'. Nah, we're capitalist animals, many masquerading as some kind of Christian (though very far from the compassion and giving nature of Jesus) or some kind of patriot (led by the draft-dodger-in-chief, belittling McCain, saying he likes soldiers that 'weren't caught', desecrating POWs, calling military leaders 'dopes' and 'losers'; this same man that had his father's doctor/renter say his 'feet hurt' and couldn't go to Vietnam). Nah, America has been led into the immoral prison of greed.
Remember what Republicans and Trump did first? They cut taxes on the rich and their corporations. Smaller cuts for the middle class, but those would expire (what a joke these guys are; and what a joke citizens are to accept it).
Trump has business 'Towers' in Istanbul. He wants them profitable. He gave up the Kurds to have better relations with Turkey. Good business, for him. He loves Russia and Putin and wants 'Towers' there and desires to be as rich as an oligarch with all the trappings and protections. He sells out America to enrich himself. And you say we've lost 'faith'?
No, we've lost good citizens; we're lazy, neglectful, too busy, unprepared, immoral as the leader. Immoral. Greed is our God, now. Slaves.
1
The Republicans and the Houston Astros are the new standard of excellence.
1
We need to rip out the corporate rot that has eaten the good of this American society and delivered negative consequences for nearly all except the miniscule ultra rich..
1
How did Americans lose faith in everything?
One answer is provided by another NY Times article with three seminal videos to explain what's happened.
The article and its videos demonstrate how, since the 1980s the USSR, and now Russia, have methodically worked to undermine America (and the West) -- by undermining America's and the West's cohesiveness, our trust.
The article describes this formal spy program by the KGB (and now by the FSB, which replaced the KGB), which they called "Active Measures". It was a Disinformation campaign that's worked very well. This same campaign was used in the 2016 elections, relying on facebook and other social media to seed American society with distrust (against our most important institutions, against "Washington", against our "FBI", against our "National Security Agencies", against our politicians that Putin hated (like "Hillary"), against "Elites", etc).
Though Active Measures was created before Putin came to power, he has overseen it for nearly three decades. He's a master at it. His government has undermined America's social cohesion, our trust in our institutions, even our trust in ourselves! Today nearly every American family has relatives with whom we cannot talk. This is the level of Russia's success. Now trump is playing their game - Russia's game - to help them and himself.
Here is the article/videos published in the NYTImes: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opinion/russia-meddling-disinformation-fake-news-elections.html
and decades of institutional debacles affecting individuals:
+Vietnam
+Savings & Loan
+Iraq
+Mortgages
= Trump
Weekly reader imbued in me internationalism and Mad magazine instilled a value to look at any status quo standard as deflatable by criticism. Thank God.
1
So many of the elite to whom we entrusted our institutions failed to act in a way that made the institutions worthy of our trust. From the military [ Vietnam, Afghanistan] to business rampant inequality] to government [Trump] to religion [child molestation], etc., our leaders turned out to have clay feet and their institutions suffered accordingly.
Ahem. Excuse me, but in case the NYT readership doesn’t know or has forgotten, Mr. Levin works for the American Enterprise Institute which is a right-wing organization that fights institutions for lower taxes, fewer consumer protections, environmental degradation, and, of course, cuts to the social safety. In the world that Mr. Levin and the AEI envisions, “trust” is irrelevant and his column is meaningless.
The military you hold up as a shining counterexample of your thesis may be relatively more trusted that other institutions these days, but also sexually harasses and rapes the women in its ranks at rates much higher than the general population. So, is this faith in institutions just a luxury for men, or do you care at all about half the population?
Are you kidding? When people have their noses stuck in their electronics constantly and they have a president who says “who cares” - what’s left?
The news - day after day - DC has turned their back on respect, honesty, and DC has forsaken us. They adore a president who probably laughs at night taking great pleasure in hoodwinking people, both in DC and all over the country, instead of not being able to sleep because of worry and concern about us.
Don’t blame “the people” for giving up! They’ve taken away public education, replaced it wit religious vouchers, reckoned by the Secretary of Education. They’ve decimated our environment and precious resources, thanks to corrupt EPA leadership. They throw little kids in cages and remove them from their mamas and papas, with no one to stick up for them. They’ve tried to take away health insurance and have even taken away food stamps from the poor and disadvantaged! They’ve allowed corruption and foreign interest in our elections, our one supposed right for all - voting.
Ah, but they’ve made taxes better or nothing for the rich. There we go. It’s not very hard to just give up about now, is it?
1
Nah - "It's Internet dummy".
Too many choices. Too many truths. It's all forest and all trees now baby.
Wasn’t the “sick society” of the 80’s brought about by Leftist thinking and actions? Peace, Love, Drugs, “me decade” selfishness, crazy “alternate” lifestyles, Manson. Remember the reaction? Reagan, “Christian Up with People” crusade, the “Moral” Majority?
That era left us. It has been replaced by the 1% with their selfishness & greed, the Right-Wing Christian church slamming the needy, the NRA with its recklessness, the Fox News Nation of bigoted misguided viewers not even cognizant of the path they are being on, the GOP, once a quality outfit, now a low-level primal tribe.
Back then it was the lunacy of the Left. Now it’s the ugliness of the Right. Institution weakness is secondary in this new era.
The founders of the US were white males who either owned or legally approved of owning slaves. Social justice types dismiss any ideas or rules put in place by the founders because of the slavery aspect - "Why should I care what white males who owned slaves thought?"
So there you have it in all its woke glory. Surprised? Shouldn't be.
It is shocking but not surprising that most of the comments cast blame. Remember what Pogo said.
Don't you think the media - yourselves included - played a role?
I was with Mr. Levin until he stated that the military was the best example of an institution without decline. True. I guess if you join the armed forces you are in an organization that is gung ho committed all the way. So extending this thought that if our society completely collapses due to lack of institutional failure, only the military is capable of rebuilding it. Say hello to the police state and goodbye to individualism. Perhaps we are almost at that tipping point.
It's unfortunate, but there aren't many like Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff.
Or consider the corporate media, which lies us into war, gives millions of dollars of free airtime to corrupt and incompetent media figure candidates, sows division among readers to heat up comment boards, and helps us point our fingers at everyone but them.
How about committing to the US Constitution?
Sounds to me that the author is calling for a little more “socialism “ but that is such a dirty word.
1) shifting from facts to "feelings" as a benchmark of right and wrong ruins the concept of Rule of Law as now my outrage will put get you fired or cancel cultured.
2) tearing down bourgeois values from the 1950's on, by liberal culture has removed the floor of stability under people
3) bourgeois values could be incorporated in liberal changes but were not. They were thrown out whole sale.
Liberals and socialists sound like Scooby Doo, "whaaaaaat?"
It is a natural consequence of Liberal choices
You say that we trust the military because it defends the nation. This is simply not true. The military does not defend the nation and that is why we do not trust it. It has made illegal interventions in seventy countries and killed sixteen million people since the end of the Second World War. Whenever it invades a foreign country, it makes more enemies for America and thus makes the homeland less secure. Your mythological thinking is symptomatic of a country that does not know how to deal intelligently with its decline, decay, decadence and devastation.
1
After reading this opinion I was reminded of the late Republican National Committee Chair and Regan advisor, Lee Atwater. After being diagnosed with terminal cancer he converted to Catholicism. In the years before he helped republican politicians get elected using negative ads attacking opponents. He left a trail of resentment and suspicion of Congress and government. Facing death he went on a mission of repentance.
Those not familiar with Mr. Atwater should read his bio:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater
2
@Jay Yep! And boy did he get results! Back then it was the Right fighting up the hill. Now it's the Right looking down and laughing at their own people who bought into Lee's make stuff up show.
From a conservative intellectual, this is a pathetic joke. Lost faith in our institutions? Really, Sherlock? Like the Presidency? The Senate? The Constitution? The Supreme Court? Governors? State Legislatures? The promise of the Fourteenth Amendment? Whose fault is that? Lookin' at you, pal. The "conservative" movement has not been about conserving anything except white, male, wealthy power. When the U.S. government had a different agenda briefly after the Civil War, and again in the 1930s and the decades that followed, the "conservative" movement began a vicious, campaign to turn the clock back. It was successful in the late 19th century, and its campaign to destroy the government this time around is now coming to fruition. Look in the mirror, dude. Weep and repent...if you actually mean any of this, which I doubt.
I want to agree, but being lectured on this topic by ANYBODY from AEI is really hard on my stomach.
Hopefully the irony and hypocrisy in the AEI asking what has happened to the public's faith in institutions is not lost on NY Times readers.
I hear echoes of David Brooks in Mr. Levin’s piece. The most succinct, if simplistic, response to both comes from James Carville: It’s “the economy, stupid.” Institutions and the people in them work best when they are adequately supported financially. Economic support translates into trust and approval.
Much of the collapse of trust and support in public institutions can be traced back to the Reagan presidency and his “government is the problem” mantra - or should we say self-fulfilling prophecy - and the assertion that the people should put their trust in the captains of industry who necessarily understand that sharing the wealth is in their own best interest. In short, trust the free market and prosperity will unquestionably trickle down. So, there you have it. Our public institutions - excepting the military of course - have been starving for fifty years and wealth has indeed trickled, and trickled, and trickled.
Is it any wonder that our institutions are in tatters and income inequality is what it is? Is it any wonder that Republicans are screaming “socialism” at every opportunity these days? What did they expect? It’s the economy stupid! Socialism is just a word. At this point it resonates because people deeply desire reinvestment in the public good. They want to trust their public institutions again.
Oh, by the way, the AEI is complicit in all this and Levin’s “woe is us” column is just a cover up for a failed vision.
Maybe the collapse of faith in institutions has something to do with how they are politicized in the modern era?
Currently on the front page, the NY Times is running an article about how the National Archives is issuing an apology for altering images from the 2017 Women's March that blurred out references critical of President Trump.
Maybe a key question is to ask WHY our public institutions betray the public trust. Maybe it's because they fear repercussions from the truly powerful who might not be so happy with said institution sticking to the principles it's supposed to follow in executing its job?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/us/national-archives-womens-march-images.html
Mr McConnell will certainly NOT be named in the history books as mr McConstitutional. More like mr. McCrook.
Am I the only person who thinks that it is only this author who doesn’t seem to understand where the roots lie?
Mr. Levin and the institute he works for are the very examples of the sort of reputation laundering institutions that he bemoans here.
The AEI preaches extreme individualism and wraps everything with the toxic sheen on Ayn Randism.
Meanwhile Mr. Levin comes to the NYT and peddles his woes.
Neither this column nor the author need to be taken seriously so far as the solutions are concerned.
This detailed discussion can be summed up: Mr. Trump, his defenders, his enablers, and his base are disgraceful.
There's a one word answer to this question: Republicans.
The Trump presidency was a foreign coup designed to tear down our institutions, drain our treasury and spend us into debt on stupid projects like the wall and space force while our infrastructure crumbles and we outlaw alternative energy. Don’t you see it? It’s so clear - we are weaker every day we don’t focus and invest in the future.
Surely guff like this is a symptom of all that’s wrong with the USA, not any sort of solution. Hang wringing cliche and reactionary ideas are what you get when your country is ground zero for hypocrisy, iniquity and inequality.
A member of a right wing think tank wondering why Americans have lost faith in Institutions?
From The Center for Media and Democracy:
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Enterprise_Institute
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) is an influential right-wing think tank that advocates for lower taxes, fewer protections for consumers and the environment, and cuts to the social safety net.......
In 2014 The Washington Post wrote that under CEO Arthur Brooks, AEI had emerged as "the dominant conservative think tank," becoming more influential than the Heritage Foundation......
During the George W. Bush administration, AEI was regarded "as the intellectual command post of the neoconservative campaign for regime change in Iraq," Vanity Fair noted.......
AEI had approximately 225 staff and an annual budget of more than $50 million in 2015.........."
Why have Americans lost faith in their Institutions?
LOOK IN THE MIRROR
Yuval Levin complains about Americans' declining character, and praises the military for "molding men and women who clearly take a standard of behavior and responsibility seriously."
Uh huh. Mike Pompeo? Michael Flynn?
1
Sorry. I blame FOX News and reality television for the decline of the American empire. Degradation and exploitation as entertainment. Truly disgusting.
1
My loss of faith in almost everything is the product of many causal variables. including, in no particular order, these: Trump, Citizens United, G. W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, The American Enterprise Institute, AIPAC, the simultaneous decline in Detroit's professional sports teams, the demise of my own religious beliefs, Trump, mass murder of many thousands of people because of Second Amendment enthusiasts, Pence, Mitch McConnell, the lack of significant change in several American minorities' cultures, Netanyahu, the increasing indignities of traveling on commercial airlines, Devin Nunes. Betsy DeVries, Lindsey Graham, Trump, climate warming, Alan Dershowitz, tv evangelists, The View, et alia.
1
We’ve made a sport of tearing down anything remarkable and admirable. I think we call it balanced reporting. Baloney.
We don’t need tax cuts. We need better infrastructure in every state! The last president tried to pass Improvements, but the GOP just isn’t interested in anything but tax cuts for their Donors. We pay a lot of taxes in the middle class & it’s wasted on tax cuts or more war equipment! It’s frustrating bc the middle class and the poor are ignored! The Senate is full of fat and happy old men throwing money at the very rich! It’s disgusting!
There has been a relentless attack on the government for decades. Republicans, hyper capitalists, tax cranks and religious zealots mainly are the fomenters of this blind criticism. The mantras have filtered down into the fabric of normal discourse Snide phrases such as "we're from the government and are here to help" erase the real things the government does like fight the Nazis, build dams and bridges, fund public schools, run the CDC and NIH and so on. Masses of people believe the private sector can do much better when in fact they serve their share holders with little concern for the impact of their output on the general population and planet. And so con men and crooks like Trump and Reagan take the reigns of our government ( which is of course "the people) promising to drain the swamp or punish the welfare queens and instead rip the supports a social system needs to survive out from under us and sell the parts for scrap.
Could it be because the government along with the mainstream (liberal) media has lied to Americans?
1
How ironic that a "scholar" from the AEI asks, "How did Americans lose faith in everything".
This is the same AEI that:
* Supports illusory "free" markets that are actually "manipulated" to make The Rich richer.
* Espouses American global, imperialistic, hegemony via neocon policies that feed the MIC while getting poor kids killed.
* Calls for "pro-market" solutions to our health care crisis - i.e. - monetizing the health of, and impoverishing, our citizenry.
* Hilariously touts their "poverty studies scholars" who "aim to maintain our nation’s progress in ameliorating material poverty", while supporting trickle-up tax policies that steadily transfer our nation's wealth to the already rich and slash ever bigger holes in our social "safety" net.
* Asserting that "freedom and prosperity depend on healthy social and political institutions", while supporting conservative policies that gut those same institutions.
Why did Americans lose faith, AEI? Take a look in the mirror, listen to your own Orwellian double-speak.
Why has this happened? A perfect storm of neoliberalism coupled with the hegemony of whiteness and the patriarchy, heteronormativity, and the shrinking percentage of the population who are white.
Neoliberalism has placed profit and accountability above all else. This drove us to No Child Left Behind and its spin-offs, including charter schools (see 'Twenty-First-Century Jim Crow Schools' by Raynard Sanders, David Stovall, and Terrenda White), that has diminished public education, excluding requirements like Government and Civics classes. Neoliberalism has pushed economic institutions toward short-term profit above all else, and we have reaped stagnate wage growth, vastly expensive health care, and corrupt, uncaring business practices culminating with the decimation of the EPA and environmental protections.
The decline in the percentage of whites in this country has many white people literally afraid for their lives - at the very least, afraid for their way of life. The rising percentage of Black, Brown, and Asian populations is challenging the systemic white supremacy and the hegemony of whiteness at every turn and this is frightening, resulting in defensive attacks. Couple this with the growing acceptance (at least on the coasts) of the LGBT+ community, and the increased power of women, including #metoo, and white men are lashing out.
This has fragmented our country and led to the social crisis Yuval Levin discusses.
I immigrated to US in 40 years ago. I have seen a decline in American Values from deep Christian idea of “you are your brother’s keeper” to pure capitalist idea “you pull yourself by own bootstrap” and “Greed is Good”. I have seen in my own family, church, in my company I worked or 30+ years, neighborhood and the country. Trump, Clintons, Bush etc. are just symptoms of such shift in values.
I do not know what the short term and long-term solutions are. I wish the author would have provided some clear ideas. But I do cherish and feel grateful to the values that attracted me to migrate to USA. I hope I can be “my bothers keeper” for few of my brothers.
85
@Cincinnati Excellent thought. We are not only our brother's keeper, we should be doing to others as we would like done to and for ourselves. But the leadership is far removed from people in need and terribly ill-informed as to what needs to be done to make anything better.
6
@Cincinnati I don't think we have a failure of institutions as much as we have a failure of one political party who stopped believing in Christian ideals and now don't want to be their brother's keeper. That is an un-American ideal, certainly not based on christianity and family values.
3
@Cincinnati: People think short-term when they believe the end of the world is nigh. "Judgment Day" is very much on the minds of people who believe God visited the Earth 2000 years ago as Jesus Christ.
5
You lose faith when each item of expectation or faith turns to be false. The ‘60s started out as an era of peace and love. We instead lived through a misbegotten war, assassinations of leaders and chaos. The ‘70s was the era of women’s lib. We went from pants suits to signify power to Kardashian-type makeup and clothes hound ‘influencers’. The’80s, with the two-household income and accessibility of the stockmarket to everyone, was to be the age of riches. By the ‘90s two paychecks were necessary just to make ends meet and we were raising latchkey children. The 2000s was a blur of nothingness, and here we are at the nadir. Events go in cycles, so maybe the zenith is on the horizon.
Unfortunately, this article does not live up to its title. While it makes some insightful and useful points, such as articulating a guiding question of, "Given my role in this institution, how should I behave?" it fails to provide an analysis--historical or otherwise--of how we've come to this place in our society. I suspect this is because doing so would impugn the neoliberalist framework championed by the American Enterprise Institute.
Assuming that's NOT the case, how could one seriously address this question without recalling the 'Reagan Revolution' that galvanized so many with the catchphrase "government IS the problem" and other variations?
Similarly, one must examine the radical individualist ideological position of neoliberals that there is no 'society' but rather only self-interested individuals (nevermind that families and congregations clearly aren't merely clusters of individuals), undermines the necessity for and thus the legitimacy of institutions and those who work in them.
The problem is not simply that virtually every aspect of our lives is shaped by an institution, but rather the NATURE of those institutions. Corporations mediate like never before in human history our actions and interactions. Corporations, in the currently ascendant ideology, are motivated supremely by a profit motive which subjugates all other justifications and responsibilities.
Institutions DO mold character & currently that means in the image of ruthless, branded corporations.
A highly distinguished pianist and conductor told me a long time ago that family, neighbourhood community, county, all the way to the top of the government should act like a well tuned orchestra.
If one or more people in that orchestra are out of tune, all others in that circle will be effected as well and dysfunction is the result.
Now we have a man with the baton in his hand at the helm of our government who on purpose plays out of tune, is unable to listen, and destroys harmony as we know it.
Even worse though is that he has been supported by the Republican arch-right rhythm instruments, the ones that started destroying the beat of the nation a long time ago.
2
The downfall of corporate America happened when their CEOs, boards and managers placed shareholder return above every other metric of success. Employee loyalty, environmental responsibility, community engagement, long term positive brand building and more all out the window to chase the ever elusive short term profit and dividend payout to the shareholder. Here's a perfect example: Boeing.
3
Thank you Mr. Levin for diagnosing this particular cause for society's fracturing. What has happened with Congress since the emergence of the Tea Party strikes me as the most corrosive example of the attack on our institutions, and it has metastasized into a broader war on all of the institutions of federal government, under the banner of "Deep State" conspiracy theory.
Now we're on the eve of impeachment proceedings that could cement for generations Congress's impotence against executive branch corruption, and bring further great harm to our democracy. In a bizarre turnabout it is the House Democratic leadership that is attempting to act as a conservative bulwark against the destruction of institutions, while Republicans continue on a nihilistic path.
@Eric: The American public has been conned out of being active shareholders in the biggest corporation in the world.
Mr. Levin missed the mark here. His article is about personal development in the institution, instead of the single most important thing about any institution:
Mission.
Any institution that does not continually remind itself and its staff about its mission will veer off. What is our mission? Is it worthy? Are we truly working toward it? Do all staff know they fit into the mission? How can we do it better?
I am affiliated with three universities and work for a big cultural institution. Nothing corrodes the soul of the faculty and staff more than a loss of mission, or at least a sense of it. Usually it is because of a focus on money, profits, and endowments, but also because of an unrequited romance with being the best in this or that, being groundbreaking, hyper-relevant to current times.
Its all about mission.
1
@David: Talent is in oversupply in many occupations.
The two major influences are corruption in our political system and corruption in our religious institutions.
By corruption I don't mean they legal definition like accepting to soliciting bribes. I mean the corruption that occurs when an institution can no longer function as it was designed, like a computer virus of a "corrupted" scientific experiment.
Corruption in politics is nothing new. But the extent and depth of control by big money is something we've never experienced. It ranges from local school boards to congress.
Honest, functioning government that is really responsive to the needs of people has become an exception. It's even been documented by careful studies which show that congress is more responsive to lobbyists than their own constituents.
But the main institution that has lost its capacity to "mold character" is the church. Whether it's the Catholic Church which became an international pedophile enterprise or the local evangelicals that have decided that the Bible can sanction brutality, sexism, racism, war.
Most church leaders respond to this crisis by burying their heads in the sand and concentrating on local charitable work.
The critical issues of our time, including the future of the planet are all above their pay grade.
When those responsible for setting our moral standards don't know what they are anymore, then organized religion has itself become hopelessly corrupt.
2
@Drspock: Yesterday I attended a Roman Catholic funeral mass where the soul of the deceased was treated as a removable thumb drive that survives death. In realty we are all temporary carriers of and contributors to cumulative human experience.
@Drspock
No reason to single out the Catholic church for its record on abuse. Research shows that rates are about the same across all Christian denominations, so you can add that to the evangelical's ledger as well.
Excellent analysis. Thank you. We seem to have developed a collective case of monstrous insecurity; we are unable to think of anything but fulfilling our ego's constant need for validation and praise. We take no pleasure in doing our jobs well or being a good neighbor, a kind person, or a responsible citizen - all we care about is how many "friends" we have on Facebook or how many likes we get on Twitter or Instagram.
The fact that Donald Trump, a malignant naricissist with a black hole the size of the universe itself at the center of his being, is President at this time is not remotely surprising. His most toxic behaviors and beliefs are mirrored by people across the political spectrum - from the rise of white nationalism on the right to the tendency of many on the left to try to bully and shame anyone they disagree with into silence.
For insitutions to have meaning, and to be trustworthy, they have to act in a way consistent with their values, even when it's inconvenient. Universities, just as one example, should be places of learning, where free speech is embraced and people learn to rationally debate the merits (or lack thereof) of ideas from across the spectrum. Instead, too often their primary concern seems to be not raising the ire of the PC police (these days, the students themselves). They have completely abandoned their values, so why would anyone trust them?
1
Because most nearly all of the people making thse lazy claims have not idea what they’re talking about, wouldn’t know a real critique if it lunged up and bit them, and are just taking the unbright word of some twit they saw on TV?
This brings to mind former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who sanctimoniously instructed us minions to "take personal responsibility," even as he and his caucus failed to govern responsibly.
I would guess that even the most zealous Trump/Republican supporters recognize on some level that too many of their favored politicians are behaving like out-of-control children, and not like respected leaders.
We The people can have some influence, if we choose. We can elect competent government leaders who truly want to serve the public. We can boycott churches that abuse women and children, businesses that scam their customers, nonprofits that misuse the funds entrusted to them. It is what kind of society we want.
I appreciate Levin's reference to Ryne Sandberg's call for players to focus on playing ball as opposed to playing ball in front of a camera. It is the TV camera that gave us the self-produced reality TV personalities and prime time TV fictional characters who, in our individual and shared consciousness, stand in for ourselves in today's cultural "arena." Levin mentions clerical abuse: abusive clerics and preachers generally prey on trusting young people, often poorer young people. Often abusive clerics came of age in the same heralded institutions Levin would like to see reformed, institutions which operated clandestinely for centuries because there was no camera's red eye or mass print media. Prior to Gutenberg's press, people got their news from priests, ministers, town criers and others distanced from as- they- happened events. News was old by the time anyone heard it and people often traveled far to and from to hear news. Today's institutions face a reality that engages people more immediately and, there are those who want to go back to the days when no one talked about "our team's" methods when it came to defeating "their team."
As a retired career research scientist, having spent the last 15 years of my professional life working on climate science, when I consider just the singular aspect of “trust in science/scientists” mentioned in this article, I’m reminded, once again, of the old adage, “Follow the money.” I’m sure that principle applies to every example—every profession—discussed in this article, but when it comes to the climate crisis (um, yes, I’m one of the 98% of scientists who *does* believe it’s a full-blown crisis) the entire _raison d’etre_ of the climate-science-denying community revolves around money. I’m often asked by friends, family, and associates about climate change, what does the science say, what lies ahead, and why there’s such a large community—starting with GOP leadership, first and foremost—that denies the overwhelming evidence in the literature. I’ve come to starting my response with a question, “Who stands to benefit from spreading denial propaganda?”
Q.E.D.
1
I also would add the situations where there were serious mistakes and misconduct, but no one was held accountable - the Iraq War and 2008 Wall Street debacle, for example. My fixed cynicism was born out of those two events. As for the Iraq war, the press has never investigated it's own failings either. It seems that people who are placed high enough can get away with a lot. It's easy to conclude that "this is how it works" and expect it to keep happening.
Have things really changed that much? Or are we more aware of these issues because of the ubiquity of the media and social media. Has the exception become the rule, because we know about it, or because things have really changed?
1
Shareholder value. Look at Boeing right now: the reporting is that the CEO will have to change the culture from "shareholder value" to "Safety first", but the problem is he was lauded for creating the emphasis on shareholder value in the first place. The shareholders are more important than human lives.
I do my work to the best of my ability and try to behave with integrity. Since I now have a child to feed, I need to be aware of my precarious position as an educated commodity in this marketplace. Our legal and governmental structures force me to try to minimize my taxes in order to pay for daycare (no grants, just tax exemptions), education (no grants, just 529s), healthcare (no national healthcare, just FSAs and HSAs), retirement (a little SS someday I hope, but everyone reminds me that won't happen and I need to max out my 401ks). In order to fulfill my responsibilities to my family, I need to think like a tax evader. Whose great idea was this?
4
I have a clear hypotheses about a cause generalizable to the population of educated whites. I.e., the 60 hours of humanities and liberal arts education mandated in every college. From the most under-qualified, most under-performing faculty of a college (when compared to STEM disciplines and professional schools), they've absorbed dogma of post-modernism, relativism, anarchism. It is an unfair hierarchy. Only endearing value: self-indulgence. Because, ttere is no truth; everything is equally worthy, meritorious, and true. The meaning of life is found in a rabbit hole of social media.
It is worth testing - if at first - from the large, growing population of drop outs and early fizzles from college (lib arts and humanities programs in particular). These cool kids graduate - or drop out - knowing everything. One way or another, they learn that they have no currency; no one is paying for an opinion about Beowolf for which they once got an A. But the debt is real, the kids they have are real, and a very real mom is doing their laundry and weakly asking for rent because they occupy the basement. I bet there are rich and multiple explanations for multiple segments of the population.
So, let me understand what you mean. All of the institutions mentioned are well known to us all and used by us at one time or another. It is interesting that the only one we can really rely on gives it's members guns to use on the rest of us. Back to the drawing board American Enterprise Institute.
The core message of one of our major political parties is that "Government is the problem" and that is straight from Ronald Reagan's mouth. That message has been repeated over and over in many ways, through many election cycles for over 40 years. During that same period millions of jobs have been outsourced, the wealthy and corporations pay fewer taxes, and offshore their wealth. In the meantime some wealthy corporations made opioids easily available to numb our pain. And don't forget the rise of Breitbart, Fox News and others sowing a message of distrust, Russian Facebook propaganda notwithstanding. Now in the age of Trump, we have the conspiracy of the "Deep State" which frames government employees as enemies instead of public servants. We also have a President who flouts the rule of law regularly with lots of media coverage of every vitriolic brain emission of his.
Do we really need advanced social science theory to answer Mr. Levin's question?
The core message of one of our major political parties is that "Government is the problem" and that is straight from Ronald Reagan's mouth. That message has been repeated over and over in many ways, through many election cycles for over 40 years. During that same period millions of jobs have been outsourced, the wealthy and corporations pay fewer taxes, and offshore their wealth. In the meantime some wealthy corporations made opioids easily available to numb our pain. And don't forget the rise of Breitbart, Fox News and others sowing a message of distrust, Russian Facebook propaganda notwithstanding. Now in the age of Trump, we have the conspiracy of the "Deep State" which frames government employees as enemies instead of public servants. We also have a President who flouts the rule of law regularly with lots of media coverage of every vitriolic brain emission of his.
Do we really need advanced social science theory to answer Mr. Levin's question?
No not really. The question is not “Given my role here, how should I behave?” as the author says. The bottom up thinking - the institution shall be reformed by its people -- is admirable but too late. Institutions themselves -- and the "roles" assigned are too calcified in thought and barriers to entry-- the malaise, despair and bad stuff among the citizens is precisely because the institutions are self perpetuating temples and entry is granted to only a few. So the author's exhortation to -- essentially -- stay within one's lane is only appropriate for the decreasing percent of people who have the wherewithall to travel on the limited, exclusionary lanes.
1
Several seminal events stick in my mind when I think of the decline in respect for institutions. The first was the War in Vietnam. It was during this time along with the assassinations of MLK and Bobby Kennedy that my faith in government was shaken. This culminated in Ronald Reagan declaring that the biggest lie was when someone said, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you." From that time on, faith in our institutions began to erode helped along by politicians who claimed they wanted to shrink the size of government and drown it in a bathtub. Second, was the declaration from economists like Milton Friedman that the corporation owed no allegiance to the nation, the community, or its workers. It's only obligation was to increase shareholder value. This stripped the corporation away from its connection to any civic responsibility or loyalty to country and the nation at large. Third, was the new ethic ushered in by the likes of Ivan Boesky who declared that 'greed is good' and made it, rather than a set of civic virtues, the ultimate ethic by which to judge whether you had succeeded or failed at life. Fourth has been the complete transformation of the the Evangelical Christian church into a right wing political organization that worships power and the values that Boesky articulated. We've had more lying about wars, more worship of money, and capital chasing the race to the bottom and now Trump. It's been a long downhill ride. Time to change and rebuild.
5
Wonderful summary of recent history! Thank you!
1
I read Negative Bias Big Media News now Everyday....it's a non stop attack on everything that is not Democrat Party approved... as a Independent Voter who is moderate I see the Right having even more Faith and conviction than Ever before ....one only needs to look at this article to see which side of America has not only lost its promise Hope Long ago ...but now Faith? ...think the word your looking for that fits is Common sense "Rational"!
Americans lost faith in their institutions because of lies spread constantly by a corrupt and illegitimate government and “president”!
Another con-man White House occupant once said This:
''Government is not the solution to our problem,'' President Reagan told the nation. ''Government is the problem.''
We have a network totally dedicated to lies, misrepresentations, and chortling disinformation denigrating more than half the country. We have a President basically taking his cues from the network’s nitwits. We have his party wholesale and in lockstep agreeing with the lies, misrepresentation and chortling disinformation as if they were 2nd graders trying to be accepted by the cool kid who will bully and bloody them if they don’t. That’s the main problem. It’s become most apparent in the past 36 months
We are watching the loss of faith in christianity. This time the “savior” died under the weight of politically expedient hypocrisy and he isn’t going to rise again in three days. The christian god can now join the pantheon of Greek, Roman and other dead gods.
Kavanaugh lied multiple times in his senate hearings. He now sits on the highest court in the land. Our religious leaders routinely molest our children. Our President lies to us daily. What is it we are supposed to believe in?
"Saddam has WMDs"
That's how.
Nonsense.
Neither 'your Americans' nor 'your ourselves' nor your 'we' nor your 'ourselves' are mine.
My black African American ancestors were enslaved in Georgia and South Carolina where they were owned by and bred with my white European American ancestors until William T. Sherman came by.
My free-person of color ancestors were living in South Carolina and Virginia during the American Revolution where they fought on the side of the rebels.
From our black African American humanity denying enslavement to our equality defying Jim Crow era my family has survived and thrived every trial, tribulation, barrier and mountain thrown our way. And so have most of my fellow black Africans in America who have seen much worse than this.
While the white European American majority is aging and shrinking with a below replacement level birthrate. With the white Americans still having babies coming from the bottom of the educational socioeconomic pyramid. Life expectancy for white Americans is uniquely decreasing due to alcoholism, drug addiction and suicide.
Too bad that you and yours accept and expect black Africans in America to be grateful, invisible, silent and subservient.
No Americans have played both the woe is me and how great we are identity politics socioeconomics victim/winner card more effectively and longer than the white European American Judeo-Christian majority. Avarice plus hubris confusing and conflating themselves with the center of American greatness.
While the
1
Just suppose that instead of being critical and harking back to the way things used to be, the focus is on building from where we are.
Partisan politics, intolerance of the other side, are significant impediments. Look around the world, no society has it figured out.
Blame the rich, government, our institutions will not solve anything. Socialism has never worked and never will as it debases the very people it claims to want to help. Just ask the people of Russia when they got rid of the Tsar, the people of Germany when they embraced Hitler, the people of Iran when they got rid of the Shah or Chavez in South America,
Good leaders don’t step-up as they are pummeled by the left and the right.
We succeed when we all succeed and that different points of view make us stronger. Unfortunately our politics and cable news thrive in a partisan environment. To me we need a third party, that can deal in compromise. It starts at the local level.
1
If conservative white Christian Republicans didn’t decide to batten down the hatches and make one more stand to preserve and extend their white culture’s control, things would be different.
It all started when they put "In God we Trust" on the $ bill.
1
Just as I thought. At the conclusion of this platitude laced screed admonishing everyone to play the role ascribed to them by the establishment, the author is revealed as a card carrying member of the AEI. Thanks but no thanks.
This newspaper is directly to blame for printing falsehoods that have led the country to disaster. Your reporter Judith Miller, for example.
Have a look at the faces of the editorial staff in the questioning of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. An elite nonplussed in the face of a vision of justice for the country that would shatter their "woke" east coast elite rice bowls.
How dare you accuse the Intelligent American people of susceptibility. We've finally come to our senses.
2
Which America? Boomers. GenX. GenY. GenZ.
Nah. We've just learned to see through pseudo-academic right wing think tanks such as The American Enterprise Institute.
Americans, in their quest for celebrity, lost sight of the value of introverts; the quietly working deep thinkers. Instead, America rewards the the celebrity; the extrovert, the self-serving, the loud, the egomaniac - even preferring the untrustworthy blowhard egomaniac in favor over the quiet, honest, professional introvert. And then, after all these extroverts are elected into leadership positions, or have cheated their way to the high ground in companies, what happens? Americans complain about inequality. It's just priceless stupidity. These days ability stands for nothing in the face of narcissism, nepotism, and favoritism. Why is anyone surprised?
1
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/opinion/china-us-trade-war-tariffs.html
W in the Middle
NY State
May 16, 2019
As if we’re Anton Chigurh, roaming the globe – weapon in one hand, coin in other...
Have seen this play out on multiple stages in multiple venues at multiple times, and it goes like this...
The three-legged stool is stood up by – in no particular order:
1. Scale
2. Smarts
3. Spiritualism
When enjoying both scale and smarts – spiritualism can go out of fashion...
The immutable logic of atheism takes hold...
But what the atheists don’t understand...
Spiritualism isn’t about fending off the devil – it’s about fending off nihilism...
But – back to scale and smarts...
If you see your adversary is going to outscale you, look to sustainably outsmart them...
For clarity, that’s not about legal or financial chicanery – it’s about technological prowess...
And seeing them as more of a friend – before they see you as more of an enemy...
If you see your adversary is going to outsmart you, they already have...
That fall is swift, public, and – unfortunately – becoming a recurring American theme...
A resurgence of spiritualism won’t help, at that point...
You just end up smiting as many of your own, as of theirs – as you willfully blind yourself with anger at what you’ve sown and wrought...
And will now reap and endure...
You can’t scale your way back to smartness, because you no longer have it – despite anything Modern Monetary Theory preaches...
…
here is a typical conservative civics lesson, long on pietistic handwringing but short on solutions.
My father, the newly-married owner of a candy store in his hometown of Gleiwitz, Germany (now Gliwice, Poland) was arrested by the Nazis on Kristallnacht (November 9-10, 1938) and spent a month in Buchenwald, before my mother was somehow able to bribe him a way out.
They were among the last Jews able to get out of Germany.
He loved everything about Germany, the books, the music, the culture. His explanation for what happened was that Hitler made the people crazy.
If he were alive today, here or in countries in Europe or the Mideast, he’d be saying much the same thing.
2
Ok -How about we start with getting rid of a president who is a complete psychopathic liiar and lowlife! -A souless ignorant vulgar carnival barker.
Then get rid of the entire GOP which has adopted his complete philosophy = "Me -Mine -More"
The Bronze Age Absurdists and Fox News propaganda machine will then become irrelevent.
"As far as asking questions of OURSELVES" - The average American is incapable of seeking such depth of clarity:
They're mostly shopping - drinking and drugging and engaged in the "Bread and Circus" that rules their way of life.
Regarding trust, I have a problem trusting any newspaper or news broadcast. I have read the NYT, for example, for nearly sixty years and now don't believe a word of it.
I have concluded that Joan Didion was right when she said, "A reporter is always selling out somebody."
The NYT . . .WaPo . . . Fox . . . L.A. Times . . . it is all just lies in the form of truth warped to an editorial end.
I will be happy when the last reporter is strangled with the guts of the last editor.
1
No need to trust congress; they are incompetent. No need to trust universities; they just want your money. No need to trust media; they are just click bait fools. No need to trust sports leagues; they are just cheaters.
Shall I continue?
We’ll elect an inexperienced old white guy who blunders, bumbles, and blows before we’ll elect any woman. Don’t blame Bernie for (maybe) speaking the truth.
@PMD - Except, we didn't. We elected Hillary Clinton by over two million votes. Trump's electoral college victory was not due to sexism on the part of the American people.
It is truly inconceivable to me why some people seem to actually want to believe in a level of bias against women in this country that simply does not exist.
Rupert Murdoch an his legion of imitators.
1
Easy answer. Republicans: bad faith, disingenuous, anti-democratic, hyper partisan, compromise equals surrender. Racists. Bigots. Liars. Crooks.
Americans have lost faith in everything?! Not so. We still have blind faith and total trust in our politicians and elected leaders and representatives, as venal, hypocritical, arrogant, and stupid as they may be. If we didn't, we'd have had term limits long ago.
Everything in America is flavored by the way we mold our children's self-image that shapes character. Each child is embedded with the belief that it is the best. We end up with trophy self-images. America is a trophy self-image country where our success are never enough. We expect and demand more and more from our selves and from others. We are unhappy with every thing from relationships to our assets.
Life is a mess because our self-image is a mess. By creating trophy self-images we create emotionally challenged selves. This messes up the whole society leading to depression, drug addictions and even divorce. Suppose my behavior value is 50 cents but I believe I am a dollar and so I give fifty cents worth and say, "Here have a dollar."
Emotional Health (EH) is the foundation of society and health and yet we have no testing or manual for EH. The reason is simple. Our experts lump the brain and mind as just the mind. So we only have mind education and the equally essential brain education is not only missing, the brain is miseducated. Thus the focus is on the health of the mind (mental health) and the health of the brain (EH) is neglected.
Mental health has 300 different diseases while EH has only one that I have termed as Emotional Baggage Disorder (EBD). We need to focus on ways to prevent EBD. Doing away with embedding the 'I am the best' belief will be a good start.
Pl. review:Wisdom 3.0 - Sajid Khan - Medium
https://medium.com/@sajidalikhan2/wisdom-3-0-b6e03324e64a
@Yval Levin - .... (cont.) take a solemn obligation to the public interest”, he writes, at the very moment in history when members of one of the most influential American institutions, the Senate, has members swearing to be impartial jurists when considering the impeachment of Donald Trump. It is astonishing that many of those same Senators are on record as having already decided not to convict the President, evidence to the contrary be damned. Not what is needed to strengthen the public’s faith in the integrity of public institutions.
When I was young, I was taught not to discuss politics or religion outside of the family or outside of church or political meetings. Now, everyone wears their politics and religion on their sleeves, or more likely on bumper stickers and t shirts. The result is a large public fight of I’m right and you’re wrong, or I’m ok and you suck. There is no going back. We are what we are and we need to learn to live with it. The most obnoxious (see Trump) will get the most attention.
I'm sure there are many reasons; may I suggest one. That the US & world economy was almost destroyed in 2007-8 by some guys (and gal's) on Wall street with no one suffering the consequences (going to Prison) but home owners really pissed off a lot of people, especially me.
1
Lack of confidence in institutions is from years of lies and deception maybe beginning with lies in advertising to suck buyers in, corporations to grow their bottom line, TV to increase demographics but basically lies and false statements....... day in and day out. We are bombarded by advertising by someone who wants our dollar, vote or attention.
As a child growing up in Queens we lived in a community. Parents worked multiple jobs, sat on their proches in the evening and knew everyone on the block, not because they were nosey but because they cared. They were part of the social network. Your mom was sick, someone was available to assist in helping with dinner. Rearranging their schedule to take you to the drs, hospital appointment. Everyone cared and there wasa feeling of security that you were not alone. it wasnt dog eat dog. that NY doesn't exist except in very old neighborhoods .
Now we step over each other and its all about self. It took decades of non caring and greed to get to the point that we are now. We went from caring to not caring, you are sick, to bad, and our seniors live in isolations. We pay for profit institutions to take care of our loved ones ,what type of society have we become Troll me if you want but minorities have worked three jobs forever but we loved our family members they were not a burden. White folks run to put their family members into a home to die alone.
Ronald Regan the great ignorant god of white America, put us on this road of destruction and the GOP have done a great job in destroying the foundations of America and Trump has been the big winner of the complete destruction of institutions.
Technology cant find a cure for dementia,,multipe cancer because the researchers are lying on their evidence but lets take a selfie.
82
@Tony :" Everyone cared and there wasa feeling of security that you were not alone. it wasnt dog eat dog. that NY doesn't exist except in very old neighborhoods"
And talk to your progressive associates and friends and ask them what they think about those neighborhoods you hold in high esteem.
"Ronald Regan the great ignorant god of white America, ..."
Reagan was also right about that welfare queen. Well, maybe a welfare prince. We had one living next door to us in Detroit. At the beginning of the month he would try and sell his mother's food stamps. Near the end of the month he would ask for cash because his mother was hungry. In the interim there was partying in the evening. His mother seemed none the wiser for it and one felt sorry for her.
I remember those neighborhoods well.
2
@Tony
"the researchers are lying on their evidence" for a cure for dementia and cancer:
Paranoia.
I am amused that this comes from AEI, which likes carping about academia even as it imitates it, without any of the safeguards (peer-review, etc) that academia has enshrined.
The cure to cynicism is...what? Recommitting to institutions? Sure, but how will you get people to do it, when from the top down those institutions are corrupt? From the moment that AEI pushed Friedman's notion that corporations are only responsible for their quarterly reports, we have moved into a dangerous religion of markets and pursuit of profit. Trump is not an aberration, but a culmination.
This isn't a question of personal morality or personal commitment. It is a question of institutional commitment. And that will require a form of bravery that neither the GOP nor AEI can quite muster.
1
Nowadays institutions (e.g. health care systems) require their employees to ask themselves "what is my role here and how should I best act?" But their leaders, bosses, boards of directors, ask themselves, "how can I maximize profits [regardless of effects on employees, clients, environment, etc.], lobby government for unfair competitive advantage, polish the corporate image no matter how inheretnly tarnished, and hide corporate wrongdoing?" With individuals made to bear the burden of moral and ethical decision making, while institutional leaders skirt this obligation at every turn, employees feel morally exploited and suffer what some call "moral injury."
Faith in institutions -- don't make me laugh.
Mr. Levin seems to think this is all well and good and as it should be. Sorry, Yuval. Leadership always begins at the top, moral and otherwise. This is what is wrong with "American Enterprise."
3
Institutions are made up of individuals. If the individuals who run the institution do not believe it its culture or its mission, obviously it will fail. So if an institution is failing, look no further than those who run it for blame.
Trump runs the U.S. government and has announced that it doesn't work. Since he wants to be proven right, he has done his best to make it ineffective. His proclamation has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
3
Why is the left pressing against the meritocracy, a construction they created only to deconstruct. Embedding woke incompetent people into every facet of society including engineering, sciences and medicine Meritocracy might exist some places but especially not at the top. Look at the President and HRC. What exist is nepotism, cronyism and a self anointed aristocracy. What do you think will happen when Climate Change kicks in and people with doctorates in Social Justice are running things.
There's still plenty of us that believe in America they just lost faith in who is running it. Why would Globalist question it. To them it's just a place to make money.
Americans are not living through a social crisis. America is dying -- not living -- through the demystification that has always been smokescreen for what America is actually all about, and always has been.
A violent, unequal, class system that denies class even exists. The only evidence that suggests class does not exist is overwhelmingly anecdotal. The mask has been ripped off.
The bloody infrastructure beneath the mask reveals a culture reeling from institutional failures — income inequality being the issue most in the country’s face — where confidence was once sacred but is now in no way connected to reality. We are far more like the rest of the world that has embraced authoritarian paradigms, but beneath the surface, we have always had them.
The great divide reached the tipping point some time ago. Climate change is seen through the lens of a hope that is fundamentally unreal. What American culture actually is remains perceived through the hope that we can change it. The tipping points have tipped and fallen down the chasm of the divide to the extent that another Civil War is no longer the terrain of the marginal. It is discussed with the horror it deserves through the wringing of the hands on the part of Americans who have been touched in one way or the other by the sheer hatred Americans are not just careening toward, but are driven by a culture whose definition of truth -- or what is real -- is utterly up for grabs.
There is no hope for America. It's over.
3
Indeed, every profession has its arena of power and its code of ethics related to that power. Without adherence to the code you have journalists intentionally misrepresenting reality, you have religious leaders seeking fame and fortune, you have politicians derelict in duty to Constitution and citizenry and serving only party and corporate interests, you have lawyers pursuing senseless cases for cash, and physicians handing out pills because the patient asks for them. Every profession can be corrupted. Money or fatigue, generally play a part.
We have a culture where money is exalted above ethical behavior so this is what we get. This misplaced devotion to material wealth has seeped into our very core. Imagine a parent discussing a son. Would you hear more pride in “He is a good ethical man, or “He is a rich man?”
“Humanity First” as Yang says. I have to believe a safety net could help us all make more ethical choices. We have created a very harsh economic system while at the same time exalting consumerism and wealth above every other value.
2
There will not be a rebuilding of faith and trust in any institution. What we are witnessing as a species is the myriad of fantasies based on belief in institutions that is rapidly dissolving. These structures we're built over centuries creating an illusion of strength. We were told they built with sweat, bricks and mortar only to find out they were insubstantial gossamer-like images created by thought. You could never actually depend on these institutions any more than you could put a hat and coat on your shadow.
I feel that public education is committed to their students despite the attacks made by Republican politicians. Too many lawyers are elected to public office. Lawyers are interested mainly in their incomes. They take on cases that have no merit but know that insurance companies will settle to avoid court trials. The religious right seeks to impose their morals upon the rest of society. Did the Southern Baptists speak out against the dreadful treatment of blacks? Our media has reached a low level, Trump represents the low point of our culture. The list goes on.
3
@JAB: Dishonest "officers of the court" who bilk clients who are clueless to the actual applicable law in courts that provide them endless costly motion practice are the plague of the US.
How interesting that there is not one mention here of the conservatives' repeated trashing of the power of government to improve people's lives. Government has been drained of the resources necessary for it to act for the public good; the states have reneged on their support for equality of public education across disparate communities; government regulation of polluting corporations is stymied too often by the outsized political influence of those same corporations. When government doesn't act in the interests of all the people to provide high quality services that create opportunity and faith in the future, the breakdown of institutions inevitably follows.
5
Americans say "In God we Trust" and for many the fundamental institutions that underwrite this trust are religions. Unfortunately many religions, like Christianity, are based on unverifiable myths which often fly in the face of the reality revealed by science. This renders them untrustworthy. Perhaps the answer lies in analogy to the spirituality of Indigenous Australians. The foundation of their spirituality is the Land, that is in effect the whole of their reality. From millennia of hunting and gathering they developed an intimate knowledge of their environment. This knowledge was not confined to the search for food and shelter. The land also documents their understanding of the creation of themselves and their world. In the modern world, the whole Universe is analogous to the Land and it plays for us all the roles traditionally attributed to God. To rebuild a foundation of trust in religion, we need to build a scientific theology, based on the actual world we inhabit. At present the world is fractured by myriad theologies that have grown up in relative isolation and provide a foundation for conflict. Science shows us that the world is one: A critical scientific study of the world will have a tendency to unify theology and religion, just as scientific biology has unified our understanding of life. A scientific approach to theology will lead to the unification of theology and religion, creating a foundation for trust in our most fundamental religious institutions.
1
@Jeffrey Nicholls: It is just plain delusional to project human nature onto physics. It only takes the name of God in vain.
"Rebuilding trust in those institutions will require the people within them — that is, each of us — to be more trustworthy."
Once again, the onus is on "us." Forget about the crushing burden inequality puts on the shoulders of the less fortunate--those who are born poor in a society where the rich are in control and continue to maintain their dominance by any means necessary, including false narratives such as this one.
1
@Grandpa Bob: Trump is completely shameless about doing the unthinkable in the name of the US.
Yes, it should be principles over personalities. However, when increasing shareholder value makes the world go round, there's going to be a problem. When a culture worships wealth, there's little hope for its survival.
4
Restoring our faith in each other and institutions must begin with restoring our faith in US democracy and our institutions of democracy. That means reforming our elections so that every citizen's vote counts by eliminating the antiquated electoral college, electing Presidents by popular vote and yes, changing the Senate so that the votes of 20 million Californians or 15 million Texans doesn't equate to the votes of 225,000 Vermonters. Our political hyper partisanship will disappear and we can really debate issues on their merits.
3
Levin is accurate that our institutions hold the key to functional society. And the question he suggests we ask ourselves, as participants and leaders in our institutions, is the right one, "How should I behave to build the beliefs of others in the organization?". But the world of social media and the current societal rewards propel us to build our own security at the expense of society. How to counter this? Perhaps the book will explore.
When I think of institutions that provided for the members I recall them as flawed, since they did not provide for all. Whether it was unions, educational institutions, government offices, religious institutions, even corporations, all worked for some of the people some of the time.
But they did work for some. It seems like the breakdown was when those institutions began to do less for those they were serving, rather than attempt to help those they weren't.
The corporatization of those institutions, increasing the distance between those serving and those served, whether in money, power, influence, supported by the ideologies promoted and supported by the AEI of Mr. Levin helped to create the crisis in the belief - really the fact - that those institutions had lost their way.
4
Mr. Levin causes me shame for my behavior at times during my career. I wish I had given a lot more consideration to how to behave “given my position in this particular circumstance”. There is personal responsibility in every life, but a lot of training in ethics during one’s formative years couldn’t hurt. This is a very helpful piece, and I hope a lot of young people are reading it.
2
Without using the term, Levin is referencing a Confucian concept: the role each person is called upon to play in the Great Scheme of Things. A challenge in Western culture is striking a balance between that orientation towards the collective (here, what he calls an organization or institution) and individual freedom. That, in turn, revolves around fundamental notions of identity— personal, social, national, universal. All this plays out on many levels. Over this new century, one level will be the evolving relationship between China and the U.S.— a nation with individuals largely shaped by strong collective purpose (partly imposed from the top down) and a nation that stresses individual freedoms.
2
@Samuel Halpern: Humans are evolved social animals emotionally motivated to compete to cooperate and cooperate to compete.
Taking off from the conclusion of this excellent piece, I infer that Nancy Pelosi, shaped by the institution she finds herself in (bounded by the Constitution and congressional practices and norms, et al), once she read the “perfect phone call” transcript, asked herself, “What should I do here?" And the right answer was clear.
6
A few things come to mind. Want of a unifying national focus, such as coming together to defeat Nazism. The national unity after 911 became eroded little by little as public learned of advanced interrogation methods and other ways the war was conducted and how the public was repeatedly lied to by its government. The great increase in digital isolation. The rise in power of the Tea Party with political lies and conspiracy thinking as more routine, which has created more loss of faith in the goodness of humanity. Religious organizations losing their moral compass, case in point - Evangelical embrace of DJT. When we've reached a place where many except corruption and lies as part of doing business to get some of what we want, we've lost our way.
7
@bt365: Most inventions are legal and unregulated until they cause serious public concerns.
It’s my understanding that the military rotates its leadership teams on a regular basis to prevent any team from “going local”. It feels like that is what corporate America has done to the entire country. There is no local, just hollowed out corporate entities with no soul and no motivation other then profit maximization
3
@Minskyite: Trump privately excoriates the military for not using its full kit of cyber warfare.
How to fix it all? The women’s march became a battle ground as well, founders “ too white”, that brand of feminism wasn’t ubiquitous enough. So even protests are now divisive instead of uniting to confront the cracks in our institutions. Our culture needs a definition of what American means, where individual cultures and community are celebrated subsets, not a tribe struggling for dominance, recognizing the injustice of the past but understanding that it can never be undone nor represents the present and should not define the future.
“...In one arena after another, we find people who should be insiders formed by institutions acting like outsiders performing on institutions. Many members of Congress now use their positions not to advance legislation but to express and act out the frustrations of their core constituencies. Rather than work through the institution, they use it as a stage to elevate themselves, raise their profiles and perform for the cameras in the reality show of our unceasing culture war....”
Not the first time we've lost faith, remember the 1960s and its struggle against racism, sexism and war? Not long ago, thanks to unions, you support your family with a factory job. But let's remember that most unions were racist (and sexist), and things were tough for minorities in most places, but signs in Virginia said "come to Montclair, you are welcome there!" Now they're being driven out. Now I see a community that caters to the rich, capitalists and churches that gobble up our tax money, the taxpaying classes paying excessive taxes, the very rich paying none. Pastors preach against abortion and molest children. But there are still good pastors like Seth Kaper-Dale and Allen Shelton, good politicians like Warren and Sanders, Dolores Huerta is still fighting for farm workers, and younger leaders like Alicia Garza, Genesis Butler and Greta Thurnberg are picking up the torch. There are many more good individuals out there fighting a basically bad system. I hope it's going to be another era of reform, like the Progressive Era, the New Deal or the Great Society. Let's hope some good changes come out of our current struggle.
5
Perhaps, Mr. Levin, conservative institutions such as the American Enterprise Institute should be the ones asking, "What can we do to be perceived as being trustworthy again?"
7
Instead the AEI fights for lower taxes, fewer consumer protections, environmental degradation, and, of course, cuts to the social safety.
4
@George Tafelski
My point exactly.
There has always been celebrity, but with Trump we are seeing the tremendous power of bad leadership. Values come from the top, and Trump undermines institutions because chaos leaves everyone clamoring for a strongman.
In every era it appears that the past was a time of better values and public spirit. The problem we have today begins with the letter "T" and ends with the letters "ump".
4
@Jonathan: Trump is a revanchist who promises to revive a utopia that never existed.
The more I think about this the less I like it. Mr Levin has made up some abstract model of an "institution" that is all about "roles"; apparently, something to do with traditional style; but there is nothing about actual goals and purposes. And absolutely nothing about whether the institution is actually trustworthy. When we in Boston learn that the FBI was conspiring with our local gangster Whitey Bulger, shouldn't that have some real effect on our faith in that institution? (Even the gangsters lost some faith in their institution, from what I heard.)
When the military seems to be all about empty displays of patriotic sentimentality, while its wars drag on pointlessly, isn't that reality going to have some effect on our attitude towards it? It certainly should.
Frankly, I'm not convinced that there was ever a time when things were that much better: when I was in the Army in the late 60's, that institution was rife with cynicism and dishonesty at the highest levels. But if we are going to talk about having faith, let's talk about how faith is actually earned.
5
@John Bergstrom: What about US public policy looks like pursuit of happiness to you?
It's the Ayn Rand-ian, "greed is good" ethos that got us to this point. Once the purveyors of that "philosophy" took power, they set about dismantling institutions where they could, or else sowing skepticism about their value. And the more unequal society became as a result of their policies, the more the average person came to believe the institutions of public life really were irredeemably corrupt. Thanks, Republicans.
7
@DA Oh, and the Dems are all fluffy angels, eh? As in Joe and Hunter go to Ukraine to collect kickbacks and then Joe runs for President and actually LEADS in the polls.
The breakdown in our institutions begins with those in Washington DC. The President and the members of the House and Senate spend most of their time in office trying to position them selves to get re-elected. The Supreme Court decision to allow unlimited funding of campaigns has contributed to this breakdown. Until Congress begins to act responsibly and until the President and Congress begin to act in unison for the benefit of the Country, the breakdown in ethical behavior of all of our institutions will continue in the wrong direction. It is interesting that the one institution that has avoided this ethical breakdown is our Military. It is an all volunteer organization and does not need to be re-elected and therefore doesn't need to campaign for its existence. We need to start with "campaign finance reform" and until that happens we will continue in the wrong direction. Those in the "news reporting profession" need to examine their ethical behavior. Fox News and MSNBC are prime examples of why we "do not trust the news media" any longer.
I watched and participated in the technology age as it unfolded. While I am grateful for some, very few, in fact, innovations they have led us to the destruction of our society and our environment.
Factory fishing ships destroy fish colonies, air travel greatly impacts our environment, the 24-hour news cycle has undermined real journalism, social media fans the flames of prejudice and misinformation, venture capitalism driven economies have wiped out the dignity of the family-run business, and our landfills are toxic from the sheer volume of short-lived electronic gadgets.
We no longer have a republic or democracy as it is only driven by the need to get reelected, not improving the lives of its people.
It is a national disgrace that the wealthiest country with vast natural resources and talent cannot feed, house or provide stellar medical care to all who need it.
4
Everything is or should be a profit making business. That is the idea that has ruined our institutions.
6
Mr Levin expresses some noble thoughts, but it is indeed rich for someone from the American Enterprise Institute to talk about the importance of institutions when its board is made up of people like Cheneys (more than one), John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz, people who embody an ethos of power seeking and dominance of others.
13
@MKlik
Maybe so, but if you look at the timeline of social breakdown and technological advancement I think that you can see a trend, shall we say.
The more "communication devices" we have, and the more platforms for (often anonymous) "communication" the more we see, hear, and feel the loss of connection.
Just think about it.
1
I agree wholeheartedly with HumblePi (see below), but I think the root of the problem is a capitalist system that values nothing other than wealth as the measure of all things. So long as that is the standard, those who are not wealthy will always feel resentful and to a greater or lesser extent, will do anything to achieve wealth at the expense of any other value. I posit that a social democratic society would lead to world where you would not value yourself by how much you had, but by what you were. From each according to his ability, and to each according to his need.
5
Excellent article, but I wonder if, as Levin says, the military is an exception -- or if it will be for very long. Some of the bad actors at Abu Ghraib did suffer consequences for their behavior, but they eroded trust in the military. Now Trump's support of the Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher has signaled that the military should be above the law. An institution that is above the law is no longer an institution to be trusted.
9
The paragraph describing how politicians have devolved from responsibility to legislate into mugging the cameras for their personal agendas and gain is very noteworthy. It described Chuck Schumer so vividly I wondered if it was a subtle message for him.
1
I read a book titled "Reverence" by a UT Austin Humanities professor. You're right. What you're talking about here is a lack of "reverence"(something larger than oneself). I also read a book titled "Empire Of Illusions" by Christopher Hedges that argues that we have become a nation of celebrities. Both support your argument. When an individual loses the capacity for "AWE" we become what you see in America today. Reverence has been replaced in America with Celebrity. Consumerism has turned politicians into widgets to be sold to a mass market.
5
Fellow commentators are blaming corporations and social media for the breakdown of social bonds. While these have played a role in the shredding of our belief in a shared community, I tend to point towards our consumerist culture as the culprit. This culture, which prizes money and fame over all other accomplishments, demands a self-focus-at-all-costs that prioritizes "me" over "us" and offers public glory via the ubiquitous channels of social media. I think it's asking too much of an institution to pull people out of this mindset. We need a total reboot. I'm hopeful that millennials and GenZ will steer us towards a better future. (And I'm a GenX).
3
There's a contradiction at the center of Levin's argument. He speaks of the role of institutions in shaping behavior, but at the end tells people to ask, "What should I do as a member of such-an-such an institution?" This is a question of personal responsibility, which makes sense only when the asker stands outside the institution. The institution has no power to shape behavior; everything is about personal choices by individuals. That is to say -- he advocates precisely what he bemoans.
Consider a rather simple example. No one getting ready for work says, "Should I wear clothes?" We are shaped by the social institutions that embrace us to wear clothes in public, and no one thinks about that at all. Such is how institutions shape behavior -- not through optional questions about what one should do.
1
This article struck me as intrinsically ironic and on the whole worthless. The author works for the American Enterprise Institute so maybe taking a look in the mirror at how conservative policies have been a leading cause of inequality in this country. That inequality has lead to desperation and an increased willingness to abandon traditional family structures.
Going back to traditional family structures and institutions does nothing for the inequality or the despair.
The answer is 75% income and capital gains taxes on those making more than $1M year and an annual levy of 1% of assets for those worth more than $50M.
6
while I largely agree with you, I think the author fails to appreciate that what improves trust in institutions for you and me, may be what undermines trust in institutions in trumpland.
5
This is an amazing piece, but I find the comments even more interesting. Almost of them point so some source or cause to blame for the decline in our institutions. These sources are something outside of their control. In other words, we are victims of other forces - that is, some sort of institution we used to believe in, and some people still do. I did not see one comment that took any personal responsibility for this decline. We are all part of the decline in our institutions. They are our institutions. We need to take responsibility for them and stop blaming outside forces for our decline.
7
I am not sure when it began as it parallels a near complete lack of trust throughout our society. In government its roots seem to be in the populace being told what they want to hear. In industry the worker used to have full trust and loyalty in the employer. Today workers in their 50's wake up every day hoping they will not be eliminated. After many law suits, large companies created the buy out or severance to ease their concience. Lying in our society evolved from a despicable trait to an art form. It is epitomized today with the term "Fake News". Another sign is "Denial" as illustrated in the OJ trial and daily "Tweets" from the top.
3
This is what makes me so sad. I don’t understand why people don’t want all of us to be successful?
What are they so afraid of? All Beings Matter, Planet Earth most of all, and
Yet nothing as a “collective” is being done world wide to give a chance for ALL Beings to survive.
Just Greed and makes me sad every single day.
8
@Calleen Mayer: Consumerism, and the GDP. Envy and hatred are great motivators. Look at the masses of money made by Rupert Murdoch and his successors all across TV---corporate advertising fuels truth, justice, and the American way. Colleges are subverted to the gladiatorial ethos. The NFL is now a major determinant if what is or is not patriotic. Not only is the Super Bowl a spectacle, but for heaven's sake, it's half-time show is a major entertainment feature, while the commercials interspersed throughout the match are judged as if at an awards festival.
4
@Calleen Mayer :
People have different priorities. Some think, "We all de better when we all do better." Others think, "Me First:.
One can see those are mutually exclusive.
1
@gratis : Of course "We all do better when we all do better." But that has not been applicable for decades. Some do very well, while others barely keep pace, and still others lag badly. Me first describes an alligators nest better than that of a human community.
1
"Faith" is a religious concept and is best relegated to that sphere; for life on earth, it is ALWAYS important to question things. Institutions are populated by people, and people are fallible.
That said, I believe one should start off believing the best of people -- at least until it is shown that they are not always reliable, at which time skepticism moderated by fairness is the proper approach. At the same time, we should be particularly evaluative when it comes to those with whom we agree on most things.
For me, that means that while I presently support most of what President Trump has attempted to accomplish, I am alert to his saying things that are not true (or, as is more common, exaggerated) and open to arguments that what he is doing does not benefit the country that he is supposed to serve.
I also balance the President's failings against his strengths and also against those of persons who would replace him. Fairness, even with constant skepticism, is the way to evaluate institutions and the people who populate them.
1
@james Trump is the textbook case of what ails us, because his main method of interacting with the public is to undermine trust in our institutions. Think about it. Everyone who criticizes him is motivated by a desire to preserve the "deep state" rather than to serve the public. Adverse facts regarding him or his administration reported by the media are "fake news" and the media is the "enemy of the people." Every broken promise (repeal and replace Obamacare? infrastructure plan?) is the fault of Democrats who "hate America." Enlisting the support of foreign nations to sabotage his political rivals is acceptable. We don't need experts in government because we have Trump, who "knows more than the Generals" and everyone else (despite his proven ignorance).
Whatever Trump has accomplished during is 3 (very long) years in office is far, far outweighed by the harm he has wrought. In my 50+ years on this earth, I have never seen this nation more divided.
1
I have had the same insight that American culture is suffering from a severe lack of social trust (seriously, ask my wife if you don't trust me).
Mr. Levin describes the manifestations of this loss of trust as if they are the causes, but I think what he is describing is rather the symptoms. We have removed many of the social norms that previously enforced a rigid social hierarchy in which women and minorities "knew their place" and were forced to accept a life with less autonomy and status than white males. That's a good thing. But in doing so, we have yet to find new norms that allow all people to thrive while still maintaining a sense of social cohesion, and in the gap we have seen the rise of a kind of oligarchy in which a small cohort is seizing a disproportionate share of the benefits of progress, and the rest of us are left to fight over the crumbs.
We need to work cooperatively as a society to develop new norms. However, we are in a "Catch 22," because one of the consequences of the erosion of our prior norms is that the main secular mechanism for mediating issues of social trust (our government) has been captured by our new oligarchy. Between partisan gerrymandering, dark money, and the ongoing "revolving door" between government and business, our government is no longer accountable to the people. Instead, it serves the interests of its own members first.
Frankly, I have no idea how this gets fixed. Nor does Mr. Levin.
4
Nothing really is simple. Life is complex. However, the root of our problems can be traced back to two major things: 1) our interpretation of the 1st amendment and its claims to individual freedom (at all cost) and 2) our socio-economic system which is based on profit at all costs, and the alienation that is created and perpetuated by the economic system. These things are deep-rooted and most don't want to face up to the fact that fundamental radical changes are needed.
5
For a long time we were able to look to the past for inspiration, but alas the past "ain't what it used to be" as it has become routine to kick many of the historically useful to the curb that they were also flawed. Often we measure others among us, past and present, by standards that are and especially were relatively unimportant to their overall story, but are instead dramatically useful to some current belief or movement. We need to stop qualifying history and who knows, perhaps we can again go back to learning from it.
1
You gloss over the fundamental question: should institutions even be allowed to form character, in the first place?
All institutions as such - not merely service providers, but crucibles of citizenship and belonging - have been created by someone with a purpose. Purpose, in this sense, comes from some ideology, including religion. Pie-in-the-Sky or Sugar-Candy-Mountain, it’s just a matter of flavour.
Things change, though. Society evolves and ideologies - with the institutions they beget - grow obsolete.
When you force any institution to still serve its Founder’s Purpose, which may now be noxious, people who find a vocation, on even just a job, within the institution will feel excluded when finding themselves incapable of kowtowing to the Portrait on the Wall.
Institutions, in the sense you describe, smack of social engineering - forgetting that the building will be only as good as the architect can make it.
I’d suggest institutions - actually foundations for public service and not more than that - follow Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and leave any attempts at following a hierarchy of leaders.
We know that the best in humans comes out when hunger is satisfied and fear is conquered.
That is easily done with food and shelter. Well fed, healthy, safely housed people commit little crime and seek no revolution.
Take care of basic needs, good behaviour and social responsibility will follow. No populist politician seeking targets for patronage will get elected by contented people.
3
The author alludes to the 'great diversity of interlocking purposes that our institutions ought to serve', without mentioning explicitly that a major category, corporations, large and small, have chosen to focus on the single purpose of maximizing the 'take' for the top management, all in the name of serving the 'investors'. This is why 'globalization', i.e. cheaper foreign labor, is treated as a religion, and the 'gig economy', with no compensating expansion of fulfillment of social needs, like health care , is treated as key to 'increasing investor return'. Gross overemphasis on venal 'values' like these are poisoning our society.
10
Moral relativism. Cognitive dissonance. These two notions / ideas, while entrenched into our founding DNA, over time will erode instituional relevance in any civilization ultimately.
1
Moral relativism. Cognitive dissonance. These two notions / ideas, while entrenched into our founding DNA, over time will erode instituional relevance in any civilization ultimately.
1
There is a lot of blaming in these posts. Can’t we stop that and take a quiet moment to ask ourselves that question so well put in the article? Am I Respectful of my role in society?
The conservative right has eroded faith in institutions for decades, but even then, those same institutions tended to only serve white, middle class 'traditional' families, and of course the wealthy. If there were to be a serious effort to rejuvenate these institutions, I'd do it in phases, starting with clear, simple voting rights.
Phase 1: Voting
1.) Ranked Choice Voting in all federal elections
RCV could reshape the political spectrum, turning different factions under two umbrella parties into several smaller coalitions that more accurately represent their respective constituents. Negative rhetoric is a less effective tactic when you have to compete with more than one other viable candidate and may want to be a voter's second or third choice.
2.) Mail-In voting and automatic registration is a national standard.
Interacting with federal agencies to keep up to date records for voter registration can blunt purges and other tactics to suppress voters. Mail-In voting is relatively easy and effective, as seen in states like Oregon.
3.) Set an Federal Election Holiday
There should be a 4 day weekend (Saturday-Tuesday), where an employer is legally required to give one paid day off to an employee so they can vote, verified with a receipt. Perhaps some sort of tax credit for an employer per employee voting could encourage participation. Furthermore, a private-public partnership with mobile phone stores as polling places would expand access as well.
Phase 2 will be in the reply
5
@CJ
Phase 2: Education and National Service
A complete overhaul of the American public education system is needed, with an emphasis on not just basic literacy, mathematics, and science, but civics, history, and advanced STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) curricula to encourage all students to find their talents and be given the resources to pursue them. As these students graduate from high school, they should be given the option to enter a federal national service program, where projects that don't have an short term profit motive, such as urban renewal, environment restoration, seawall construction, public housing construction, and many other tasks that could use many able bodied people. These people would be paid, but also be provided public housing (that they would likely have built themselves). The income they earn would be spent in the communities they are working in, helping the local economy. These students would be sent from all over the country, so being exposed to different regional cultures while cooperating on a project can have lifelong effects against various biases. After as set period of time, say a minimum of two years, a student earns access to a national healthcare program for the rest of their lives, and receives at least 2 years of tuition free public college in any course of study they wish.
Phase 3 will be in another reply if there is interest.
5
This piece really resonated with me. There is something wholesome, enduring, and valuable to the notion that the “institution” can serve as a touchstone for civic behavior. By losing faith in the very idea that institutions, agencies, or governments can serve the public good, we are conflating individual greed or corruption with a nihilistic abandonment of social structures and norms that are designed to protect against these things. I believe civil society needs some structure, and while no system is perfect, rampant individualism is far more unpredictable and unstable than working to address civic unrest utilizing institutional systems and the historical insights they offer.
2
He had foreborne, hoping others would forbear, and they had not. He had toiled in back rooms while shallower men held the stage. They held it still. Even five years ago, he would never have admitted to such sentiments. But today, peering calmly into his own heart, Smiley knew that he was unled, and perhaps unleadable; that the only restraints upon him were those of his own reason and his own humanity. As with his marriage, so with his sense of public service. I invested my life in institutions - he thought without rancor - and all I am left with is myself.
John Le Carré
6
Most of the comments don’t address Levin’s thesis that institutions no longer provide social structure that gives meaning to our lives. He blamed individuals, and as a remedy, their fulfillment should conform to expectations set by their employer or organization. It didn’t pass the smell test….
Membership in the civic organizations that once underpinned American life has markedly declined. One cause is teaching of critical thinking skills that arose during the 60s and continues today. Question Authority was the mantra. Empowered to think for ourselves, and confronted with corruption, intolerance of diversity, and abdication of responsibility, we learn distrust of government and organizations. We now know that laws and moral principles apply only to a segment of the populace. And Levin asks us to embrace institutional rhetoric, to march in step?
Another factor is exhaustion: there is no respite from 24/7 emails, social media, texting, and cell phones. Stress surrounds us: two-earner family life, financial worries, byzantine health care/insurance mazes, etc. Where is the time or energy for civic engagement? Here also are roots of our social malaise.
There is longstanding GOP distrust of individuals making personal choices about morals and personal behavior, and disdain for public support of the poor. The elephant is an apt GOP symbol: they don’t forget. When I worked for Congress I heard many Republican Members complain about FDR and the remnants of the New Deal.
3
@Christine Flanagan "There is longstanding GOP distrust of individuals making personal choices about morals and personal behavior,"
Do you include those that want to maintain their Second Amendment rights?
In your comment of actors performing in the institution instead of in it, immediately brought to mind Lindsey Graham's performance at the Cavanaugh hearing as well as Cavanaugh himself pounding on the table. Then I remembered a story on NPR's Fresh Air about the fight between Newt Gringrich and Tip O'Neill over Newt's fiery, passionate speeches in front of C-SPAN's cameras inspiring fellow conservatives to join him for favorable press. Then Tip had the camera pulled back to show their orations as practice runs in front of an empty House.
This erosion goes back a long time--Reagan, McCarthy, pick your instance--the problem is lately the erosion is not rebuilt and continues to erode respect.
5
Because of the widespread use of cellphones, Americans in recent years have seen video evidence of the police beating unarmed 'suspects' - including school children - screaming & threatening innocent people & fatally shooting unarmed people in the back, in their cars, in the street, Evidence in the videos released are that a large percentage of these people are African-Americans and other minorities.
We still don't know why Sandra Bland died in jail after being arrested for nothing during a bogus traffic stop in Waller County, Texas, in 2015. Bland, a 28 year old African American woman who had been on her way to a new job, was found hanging in her jail cell. Her death was ruled a suicide. Bland told family members during phone calls from jail she was arrested for during a minor traffic stop and believed her arm was broken. Millions have not forgotten Sandra Bland.
It wasn't people telling us this is happening. It was video from their cellphones showing us this is happening.
When people don't trust or believe law enforcement, one of our founding institutions is broken.
8
Our society is empty. Our trying to fill it up with identity only makes it worse.
6
People lose trust in institutions because institutions become corrupt. Particularly corrupt is the institution of Distrusting institutions.
The only real institution governing the USA's world view is the Profit Motive, aka Greed. Greed begets corruption.
The People chose this ethos of a society based purely on self-interest when it bought into Reaganism. This was the irrevocable blunder that corrupted prior modes of civic duty, unity & community.
The author decries pursuit of personal celebrity at the expense of self-sacrificing participation in societal institutions. But that's a product of the greed-motive.
Pursuit of Celebrity is a malady manufactured by industries profiteering from staged idolatry of stardom. But the false-idols of the entertainment industry are actors, personas manufactured by marketeers.
The Reagan model relied on religion to temper rampant self-interest & maintain societal ethics & morality & community. But history holds the Church can be corrupted.
Instead of biblical charity & love, we got celebrity mega-church pastors in private jets making millions preaching 'Prosperity Gospel'.
So we're left with only greed & corruption; A military corrupted by its industrial-complex of war-profiteers unfettered by the despair & suicides it engenders. A greed-based religion-industry. A judicial/political system now corrupted by the faux-gold progeny of Reagan's religion of greed & its dangerous stepchild: Apocalyptic pro-polluter anti-environmentalism.
5
Institutional normative behaviors and constraints on those behaviors evolved from similar structures at the tribal, regional, and nation state levels. Mr. Levin is correct that failure in these institutional structure cn only be reversed by those who are in them. Unfortunately, those able to subvert those norms are able to do such damage that the price of recovery is more human suffering and death. Cesar at the Rubicon, Cromwell becoming Lord Protector, and General Secretary Stalin all subverted the systems they were part of to establish power outside of and over those institutions at tremendous cost to the rest of us. Condemning Donald Trump for behavior seeded and fertilized by Mr. Reagan’s comment that “government is the problem” is too facile. This type of behavior has become the new normative process, as evidenced by a recurring pattern of “failing up” by those in positions of power. Mr. Levin’s Cri de Coeur to the remaining few is too little and too late.
4
So would you say we lack faith, temperance, diligence, patience, kindness and humility? Hmmm...somehow those qualities sound familiar. They used to be called virtues. Maybe Christianity was on to something.
3
when i read a column of this tenor, my first impulse is to give the author a hug and tell him, "no, it's not so bad." but then, in a therapeutic spirit, it's necessary to unravel the "stinking thinking."
there's no progress to be made with vague categories such as "institutional dereliction." what does that mean, exactly, if the dereliction is in the role filling individuals? and if all the institutions have "collapsed," then why aren't we in poverty, at war, mere savages?
he doesn't seem to realize a "role" is by definition the rules of "how i should behave." people in a role don't ask that question because they've been told it already. it's called employee training.
i'd also point out that, while most workers perform their "roles" only routinely and sufficiently, that's really all most institutions ask of them. even the institution of marriage.
i also ask why mr. levin has heard of rape in the clergy, but not in the military; nor of sailors asleep at the helm during a sea collision or of SEALs who commit war crimes.
most of the "abuses" mr. levin identifies are people misbehaving outside the sports stadium or military post, not within them. (i except clergy and sacristy.)
we can of course frock everyone with a strict institutional uniform and name tag, but what kind of culture is that?
the real world is messy and mr. levin doesn't like that. maybe i don't like it either. but there it is. and "mo' better role players" with a little scare rhetoric won't fix it.
3
A big loss of faith occurred on July 28, 1868, when gender was first written into the US Constitution with ratification of the 14th Amendment. Had "person" been used instead of "male" in its section 2, we'd be much more true to the founder's vision.
1
First, I moved here, the US of A, forty plus years ago and I never regretted it. I love living here, the best place on Earth. Second, I never lost faith in anything because I never had faith in anything. Politics, business, etc. are the same cesspool everywhere. However, one can still have the perfect life here and not really elsewhere. PaulN (lived in many countries and is well aquatinted with at least 50 of them)
2
Ever since the draft ended, that sense of common service to our nation as a whole has gradually been lost. John McCain was one of the last Republicans that served in the military under the draft. There's something to be said for working shoulder-to-shoulder with a cross-section of society.
One could say that the modern Republican party (certainly since Ronald Reagan) is pretty much of the same mind - that government is not of us, it is some monstrous oppressor parasite that needs to be destroyed to ensure our freedom.
The Tea Party Republicans were a particular example of people who entered an institution that they detested in order to disable its ability to help "others".
We need people representing us in government who actually believe in its ability to serve the common good.
4
@Tom Wanamaker I'm afraid that the sense that "the government is not of us, it's a monstrous oppressor parasite..." corresponds to the point where it started to look as if the benefits of the New Deal, and post WWII GI benefits, were going to be shared with black people. It sounds ugly, but plausible.... maybe it's not just white people seeing black people as outside the community, maybe it's just that the country has gotten so big that nobody identifies with all of it anymore... they have their neighborhood, and any demands from outside seem alien and oppressive. But the race thing might not just be a coincidence.
1
@John Bergstrom "Others" = not WASP
1
Religious institutions claim to have God's guidance, and they're a right jolly mess.
Remember 'Don't Be Evil?'
Now, Google is a trillion dollar company and the catchphrase disappeared, buried under stacks of money.
The military might hoorah and semper fi for public consumption, but the Pentagon has failed two audits after avoiding legally mandated audits for decades. Let's not forget 'collateral damage', verbal gymnastics to soft pedal the slaughter of children.
Molded by an institution? Brainwashed is more like it.
2
Moscow Mitch and his band of republicans obstructing justice at every turn.
Oh wait, maybe it was the Supreme Court that selected NOT elected gwbush in 2000.
Or maybe it was Nixon and his southern strategy.
8
Is it really the role of an institution to mold character, or is it the responsibility of citizens to mold their institutions? Perhaps the greatest problem we have is the abandonment of civic responsibility; that approximately half of registered voters cast ballots being the obvious example. We are a lazy, overly-comfortable citizenry who finally have become enraged by the corruption all around us. But it got that way because we have not bothered to participate in society, most especially since social media has replaced face-to-face interaction with those around us. Until each person is willing to invest their time in active citizenship - voting, volunteering, running for local office, questioning their elected officials - corruption and greed will rule the day.
3
Most haven’t lost faith in our government and it’s institutions, just are just exhausted from Trump and his lies, corruption, and endless efforts to hurt those most in need.
3
@Don P. In terms of having faith in US institutions: Even in the ceremonial presence of a chief justice of the Supreme Court, it seems odd that certain testimonies will not be available for judicial review eg. some White House staff, former mayor of NY.
If access to all the evidence is important, is not this a blemish?
3
@Don Peter - All democracies have warts, blemishes, and some are diseased, and some institutions like the U.S. Senate recently have had more blemishes than most but I’ve lived long enough to witness change and have seen our government in crises of monumental importance such was the struggle for civil, voting and equal rights and the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and yet as a nation we did move forward and those experiences strengthened many of our institutions. I’ve lived thru worse times than Trump and his corruption and I still believe that we will get thru this mess and improve of society.
1
Did you happen to see the article, in this very newspaper, on the company whose facial recognition software is ending privacy, Mr. Levin?
Did you happen to notice that the US Congress has passed no law limiting this rape of human liberty?
Any American who has faith in governmental institutions is simply not paying attention.
2
Let's be honest. Everyone knows the solution to the problem. No one is saying it. But we know exactly what it will take to get rid of the problem of Trump and his fraudulent empire.
1
"...we can’t quite seem to get a handle on just where those roots lie."
No. We know. Everything has been monetized. Everything is now based on use value - the amount of money it can bring. The billionaires are the new Apollonian deities of the religion of commerce and technology and everyone else (unless you have exceptional beauty or talent, because that could lead to money) is just a peasant.
This is a revamp of 19th century laissez faire capitalism which birthed a gilded age but without that centuries prudishness, instead a reality television revamp of the greco roman world's dumbed down hedonism.
This is the Empire. It's filled with soldiers, gladiators, concubines and slaves.
Religious faith, monetized. Once seen as a philosophy to guide right behavior is now a form of political networking. Gather the cash in church then leverage power by buying political influence with it. That's what the evangelical spirit has become.
Education, monetized, is about credentials, payed for with cash. he higher the price the better they are, like handbags, you can bribe your way into it. Thus we educate all the wrong people really, really well.
This collapse of the soul and mind is no accident. Their are not two sides — simply haves who have ever more, and have nots who have ever less.
Yes Virginia there is a class war. And the dumbing down of politics religion and education into mere cash and carry gestures is a result of class hegemony. It has been forced upon us from above.
6
It is the absolute worship of the almighty dollar not only by corporations and politicians but newer immigrants who are here exclusively to get money. I include those here on the special work visas and those they sponsored to come here under the families reunification. Only the money and a chance to live better and send money to whatever place is home. They got the message from the ads and the goods that that's who we are and reinforced it for years now, never really caring about anything but the money.
1
For the 17th year in a row, nurses were the most trusted profession in the US.
https://www.aha.org/news/insights-and-analysis/2019-01-09-17th-year-row-nurses-top-gallups-poll-most-trusted-profession
There are reasons nurses are so trusted:
1. There exist few opportunities for a nurse to better his/her financial or personal situation by acting unethically;
2. Nursing education focuses intently on the ethical obligations of nurses to always act in the best interests of their patients BEFORE THEMSELVES, and
3. Fellow nurses are diligent in policing and monitoring the behavior of their fellow professionals.
Although now retired from both fields, I held both registered nurse and law licenses for much of my life. The difference between the ethical commitments of practitioners in each field could not be more stark.
7
When we saw millions of Americans vote for a well known corrupt man. When we saw the racism of millions. When we saw the hate of millions expressed by a ranting immoral man,When we saw lies replace truth, lies and beliefs replace facts.
When we saw immigrants locked up and families separated in our country. When we saw climate changes ignored and fossil fuels promoted.
Now, with the trial we see complete loss of our government as a democracy. WE see greed and ambition replace patriotism. Yes, we are having trouble finding who we are. We are very confused and worried.
4
The rebuilding of American values has to start from the bottom up. We as a people need to remember The Common Good, Respect, Helping Your Neighbor, Being Polite, Not Responding In Anger, That A Life Well Lived means you helped others succeed not that you died with the most toys.
This turn around starts with each of us: Find a cause that appeals to you, volunteer, donate, get involved in making your community a better place, be polite, wave with all 5 fingers, let someone in the line of traffic, use your turn signals, VOTE.
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." Start today.
3
Or in the Midwest and West you can wave with either two fingers lifted off your steering wheel or just the index finger again lifted off the steering wheel with the rest of your hand on the wheel.--The Farmer Wave.
While I agree superficially with all the commenters deriving Mr. Levin's essay for disingenuously overlooking the herd of elephants in the room, the quantitatively based capitalistic system which inhumanly turns human beings into numerical categories to be exploited and abused - there is another way of looking at this problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI&t=112s
In this video, Iain McGilchrist explains briefly how the dominance of a certain kind of detached, purely analytic, one-dimensional, quantitative thinking has led to division, separation, and alienation in the modern world, and the capitalist mindset is only one of a wide variety of manifestations of this way of being (or not-being) in the world.
Until we become aware of this, and balance it with a more integral, qualitative way of being, the world will continue to spin out of control.
2
Loss of faith in institutions is not news. It has been much discussed. We lose faith in institutions when they can no longer provide the services they are meant to, or when their services lose relevance because they no longer serve our needs.
Not just our American society, but societies everywhere are in shock from a information revolution the societal impact of which we do not fully understand. It effects every aspect of life. You could say it has primacy. It has accelerated the pace of change to a point where many people, and many institutions, are unable to adjust. The isolation, alienation, and despair are not surprising. It is an epidemic of cognitive dissonance. This is not a problem that can be solved with the tools at hand. It could take a generation, or several generations to arrive at a resolution. We are living through a great historic transition.
3
No, it is mainly parenting that shapes character, morality and ethics, and the yearly increasing nastity around us, means that modern parenting doesn't ecucate. Human scientists and laws interfered in this DNA-fixed task during the forties in the US, and in less than 3 years, parents and teachers rung the bell, immediately silenced by "specialists". Source: Reader's Digest issues from those days in my possession. Reader’s Digest, April 1952:
"Foreign students say that in the US the young govern the home, and found them infantile, immature, uncapable of having their own ideas and of auto-discipline, irresponsible, loveless and disrespectful".
This means that 10 years after Modern Parenting was introduced, it had already influenced drastically American youth’s minds.
Modern Parenting made people accostumed to never being criticised or blamed for anything. Modern Parenting inflated drug addiction and -traffic, because it produced ever more young without character. Therefor, if we don't go back to freedom in parenting so that parents will again have the right to apply physical punishment, whatever is necessary to impose respect, sense of responsibility and good behavior, chaos will be over us in no less than a decade I fear. There are already several signs of caos approaching such as policemen fleeing and committing suicide.
We quit having faith in anything when we were taught there were no absolute truths bequeathed by a Divine Creator. There must be some ABSOLUTES that we do not question to form a basis for discussion and direction of our civilization. People think they are smart when they question everything... Intellectual maybe but not smart. When a people can agree to put faith in some basic absolutes then they will build other absolutes to put their faith in.
1
The roots of the social crisis confronting the U.S. run deeper than the "trustworthiness" of those within American institutions. It's a crisis brought on by competitive capitalism. Neo-liberal capitalist ideology has created a ruthless social order, where an individual is either a villain or a victim, there is no in-between. Furthermore, institutions - and those working within them - have prioritized institutional loyalty, survival, and profitability over social responsibility and the common good. If you want a more harmonious social order, change the ideological premise (neo-liberalism) underlying American institutions.
3
Unfortunately, Yuval Levin’s idea of a “free society” is the Libertarian ideal of unfettered free market capitalism espoused by the American Enterprise Institute where he is a “scholar”. The AEI is funded by donors , chief of whom is the Charles Koch, who has been one of the chief supporter of the philosophy of much of the recent government policies like tax breaks for the ultra rich and loosening environmental protections. Strange that Mr. Levin is bemoaning our collective loss of faith in institutions just when
“We trust political institutions when they take undertake a solemn obligation
3
What we have seen over the last 30-plus years is the ascendance of a corrosive ideology (advocated by Milton Friedman) where corporate profit and shareholder value are sanctified as the primary metrics of performance. The approach became popular in the 1980s, not because it was correct, but because it enabled a corporate C-suite to be highly compensated through a "downsize and distribute" path with money that had previously been retained and invested in growing a business. Friedman's ideology continues to have deep corrosive effects throughout the economy.
6
@CC
Yes, and add to that that increasingly public ownership of corporations removed the connection between the owner and worker. Now you have faceless stock owners that press to maximize profits and stock values.
2
@CC
Actually MF was right. The problem is the short termism driven by the market. Profit and shareholder value shouldn't mean just a quarter or a year performance, but include long term outcomes. Problem is while that is important to the corporation and many who work there it isn't to the markets who in turn are subjected to short term outcomes so have no long term allegiance to individual corporates.
Typically family owned firms don't have those problems.
4
What Levin describes is in fact a rejection of institutional authority because one side believes that the institution has been captured by the other side's morality.
Liberals reject conservatives' moral authority, just as conservatives reject liberals' moral authority.
For example, the University, for conservatives, has lost its moral authority to teach because it has been captured by liberal ideology.
Psychologists have found five INNATE bases for morality:
1) Harm/care
2) Fairness/reciprocity
3) Ingroup loyalty (tribes) groups that are united to fight other groups
4) Authority/Respect
5) Purity/Sanctity: you can attain purity through control of some aspect of your behavior;.
For Liberals, 1 & 2 are the bases of morality. But they reject 3, 4 or 5: let's celebrate diversity, not common in-group membership; question authority; keep your laws off my body.
Liberals speak for the weak and oppressed; they want change and justice, even at the cost of revolution.
Conservatives want 1 & 2, but they also want 3,4,& 5. They speak for institutions and traditions; they want order, even at cost of those on the bottom. Order is precious; it's hard to achieve, and it's easy to lose.
The key is to see that BOTH are valid, like yin and yang, and both are necessary to a complete view of the world.
To transcend our 'tribes,' get out of being 'self-righteous,' cultivate moral humility. remember that the other side also possesses some of the truth.
4
The institution of "fear" is the driving force in this country. Day after day, night after night when you turn on your computer, mobile telephone, television or radio you are subject to a barrage of negative news that more often than not are "one-offs." The fear of you being a victim of something that occurred 1000 miles away and to someone else drives you into isolation. It also drives ratings up. When we, as people of this country stop being fear based and fear driven we can make the inroads back to institutions for positive growth.
3
Instead of falling for the sentiments and words used by the author one should look at his employer and what they represent.
American Enterprise Institute is one of those conservative think tanks that have destroyed the very Institutions that the author is talking about - or turned them into servants of the wealthy.
9
Mr. Levin ought to be called out on the claim that only the military is respected as it still fosters the values he promotes. In recent polls the general public's trust in the US military in fact has plummeted--in tandem it would seem with ongoing and new scandals in all branches of the Armed Forces, including allegations of test cheating at West Point, the Pat Tillman affair, torture of prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo, claims of widespread sexual harassment and assault of both men and women, killing of civilians by Special Forces, and the theft of anti-terrorist funds by Green Berets, all unfolding in the context of constant unwon conflicts.
7
@mef
It would have been interesting if Pat Tillman had lived - or if journals had survived. His attitudes had changed dramatically during his time in Afghanistan.
With all the publicity given to his enlistment, any criticisms coming from him after his service ended would have had a substantial impact on public opinion.
Despite the deliberate obfuscation over the circumstances of his death, Tillman does seem to be the victim of a legitimate 'friendly fire' accident. And while some might find his death 'convenient' it is no surprise that his journals 'disappeared' despite Army regulations concerning the preservation of personal property of the wounded and deceased. You can bet that one of his superiors took a quick look, relayed his concerns up the ranks and was told to 'lose' them.
2
American lawmakers are part-time legislators but full-time fundraisers. A flow of corporate money that was a trickle initially became a flood after Citizens United, a Supreme Court decision widely praised by AEI scholars. It has become difficult to be a fully honest member of Congress unless you are independently wealthy, and as the rot continues to spread ever fewer decent human beings are even inclined to take up the challenge.
What is actually surprising is not the structurally inevitable corruption at the top but the lack of resistance to it on so many other social levels. It is as if half the population was simply waiting around for permission to indulge in pre-formed larcenous proclivities. Trump waved the green flag, and the race was on.
Scholars like Mr. Levin can surely find all sorts of clever ways to describe the causes of the social collapse. But ultimately it comes down to this: In a society that has come to prize individual greed and ego gratification above all other values, the social fabric was bound to fail. It was simply a question of when and how.
The unapologetic vulgarity of Trump may have come as a shock to the sensibilities of Establishment intellectuals, and the power of magnification inherent in a suddenly universalized electronic media has taken everyone by surprise. But the essentially corrupt nature of the contemporary national enterprise long has been visible on the horizon. It just arrived quicker than expected and in the hands of usurper.
8
@woofer
The transformation to Empire from Republic has been underway for some time. Those that created our Imperial Presidency never expected an outsider to occupy the White House. Bush went through two terms with less criticism than Trump.
But with a demagogue in power, the career politicians have been put in the position of pledging fealty to this outsider or losing their own power and status.
Never anticipating someone like Trump, the DC insiders have no idea how to control him.
Is this how Rome felt under Nero?
5
By all mean let’s have the military and its institutional structures, values, and history be our guide. Likewise its best and most honorable leaders.
How to do that? Reinstitute the draft, or at least have military service as a core option in required national service.
6
What a strange essay. The chaos in American society is the result of the Republican Party's war for oligarchy and against democracy over the last 40-50 years. It's obvious. See 'The Powell Memorandum'.
18
It’s trickle-up. When I left the white ethnic working class city where I grew up to go to an expensive private college in the midwest, and met educated upper-middle-class people, what struck me most was that they trusted formal institutions and took laws and regulations seriously. Or at least they claimed to and that was itself an improvement. Where I came from the view was that formal institutions were a sham, all the real business was done through back channels, no one took regulations seriously, everything was a hustle, a scam, a conspiracy, and it was just childish to think otherwise.
Now, apparently, the ethos of the working class has trickled up. I trust formal institutions, and I love the Establishment because, where I come from, the alternative to the establishment is the Mob.
7
@Harriet Baber
From your excellent comment:
"...formal institutions were a sham, all the real business was done through back channels, no one took regulations seriously, everything was a hustle, a scam, a conspiracy, and it was just childish to think otherwise."
You just described Trump's perception of the universe to a "T". He's been a crook, a con artist and a double-crossing, dirty-dealing mobster all his life. The White House is just his latest address where his cheating, lying and blatant demagoguery continues unabated.
1
When people cannot count on anything, they go into survival mode, which means anything goes. A country cannot last when only the laws of the jungle are at work. For years the Republican Party has been trying to weaken our national institutions to return control to the states, where corporations wanting tax cuts and no regulation so that they can create more jobs. But we’ve seen that weakened national institutions have allowed weakened state institutions. Corporations are running the states and now we have states warring against each other to attract jobs that pay minimum wage and corporations running for profit prisons-that require more prisoners and for profit schools that take money from the public schools and student achievement is declining in direct proportion to declining household income.
If we ran our families as businesses, we would get rid of those kids with problems, those elderly relatives that need assistance ... because they cut into the bottom line. But we don’t do that because we don’t see family members as costs. If we could see that all citizens are members of a family, we would strengthen our institutions so that they can protect us from being treated as costs to be eliminated and then return us to valued family members .... good legislation will do this. Let’s elect statesmen and states women, not businessmen.
15
Since the industrial revolution, and perhaps the Enlightenment, mankind has been driven by the instinct for exploration and progress. The tools we used were scientific -- the telescope, the microscope, the X-ray, the transistor, psychology, biology, physics, chemistry. At the same time, religion and philosophy were evolving as we proceeded on our mission of discovery. The space race was a great adventure limited only by our imagination. My hypothesis is that we have discovered we have nowhere left to go. The universe is vast beyond our imaginations, the quantum world is beyond our understanding and the human species has reached the limits of its capabilities. The next chapter will be development of artificial intelligence, quantum computers and robots that will travel into regions of space where human beings cannot. Nano-robots will repair our bodies from the inside. No wonder that appeals to the glory days of the past or racial identity seem so comforting to so many. Progress will continue, but not everyone will come along for the ride. The primitives who want to rule the world are taking their stone-age hammers to the laboratories of science and the halls of academia. Technology has delivered but the thrill is gone. Who or what will lead us into the future?
3
Skills have to be massively upgraded for this next tech revolution. If America continues to make excuses as to why it can’t upgrade education for the 21st/22nd century, then the resulting social inequalities will lead to some dystopian end.
Electing uneducated con men like Trump and Graham prevents America from taking the actions necessary to adjust to a changing world.
2
Why have we lost faith in everything? We have been told to lose faith, over and over and over.
We have deeply factionalized politics, who do no simply disagree, but vociferously deny the legitimacy of the other side--and both sides do it. We have equally partisan media, who challenge not just political policy but personal character and legal grounding of government itself. We have been told that religion is useless, but then construct social ethics and promote them with religious fervor, until we change our minds and denigrate last year's ethics and those who represented them. We have academic figures who tear down their own institutions, while telling us how wrong they are. And we have the constant drum beat of social media, mad about everything, and telling us we should despair, too.
In spite of all the evidence, we have powerful vested interests working 24/7 to make us question reality, telling us that only they can save us. And we appear to be gullible enough to accept it all and wallow in paranoid depression.
2
I agree that institutions are failing the US and Canadä (that’s where I live). I believe the trend of the individual wishing to create their own “platform” via digital means may corrupt that individual within the institutions to be self serving vs acting within their role in that institution. Trump will be studied for years on that point. Good or bad.
2
The American Enterprise Institute is a think tank funded through donations from individuals, corporations and foundations. According to Sourcewatch, they are funded by many corporations connected to the fossil fuel industry.
Analysis / Bias
According to Open Secrets AEI almost exclusively supports Republican candidates through donations.
In review, AEI is closely associated with conservatism and neoconservatism, although it claims to be non-partisan. Policy wise they advocate for lower taxes, fewer protections for consumers and the environment, and cuts to the social safety net. In articles they use minimally loaded words and generally source properly. However, there is moderate use of loaded words especially when discussing climate change: The climate empire strikes out: The perils of policy analysis in an echo chamber. While the American Enterprise Institute does not deny climate change is occurring, they frequently downplay human involvement and reject the consensus of climate scientists in favor of further deregulation of emission standards.
Nice sentiments from a pendant in an institution that has promoted degradation of our democratic system and our environment. That Band-Aid won’t hold.
3
I thing something even more fundamental is going on: that all of society's institutions are becoming extensions of the business sector. One can see this in engineering, law, and business professors at universities, government managers, military officers, and even headmasters of private schools. It's not what society can do for you, but what you can do for society.
Integration of social institutions is but another pillar of what will become a future autocracy: authoritarian plutocracy. The professional-managerial class and higher social classes have already bought into the notion of a highly stratified society. The rest of us just exist to serve them.
5
" to ask the great unasked question of our time: “Given my role here, how should I behave?” That’s what people who take an institution they’re involved with seriously would ask." This is akin to JFK imploring people to, "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
We are now so far away from that - do you think Mitch McConnell ever thought to himself an analogous, "Ask not what being a Senator can do for me, ask what I can do for the Senate"?
The issue is twofold:
1. A sizable percentage of the white population does not want to deal with “others” as equals.
2. Abortion continues to create an irreparable year in the social fabric. As a result, there are too many single-issue voters.
An equal multi-ethnic, multi-cultural country with full women and LBGT rights are in trial right now. Whether such a society is theoretical or practical will be decided in November.
2
I recently read a book by Clolin Woodard entitled: American Nations: A history of the eleven rival regional cultures of North America. Approached first with certain skepticism it opened my eyes to an historically based reality that now seems very basic to me. Yes, indeed, that pattern of national formation -- based on conformance by later newcomers to the beliefs of diverse original settlers -- is indeed reflected in what we percieve as social conflict of recent origin. I would be interested in the reaction of others to this thesis.
4
I have lived through the institutional and societal breakdown the author describes here, and I saw the the disintegration began in 1980.
From that time to this, some among us have labored mightily to convince all and sundry that we have no civic responsibility to any people or institutions outside our immediate families.
We've been encouraged to believe ours is a dog-eat-dog society, one in which we must always push solely for our own advantage because no one else will, or should, assist us. Our government should be small enough to drown in a bathtub, because the idea that citizens might use it to support the common good is anathema.
The companies where we are employed no longer make investments in their human capital, and our jobs are either outsourced to the area of cheapest labor or kept here with lower salaries and no benefits. Businesses are willing to take advantage of the infrastructure created in a more forward-thinking age, but as that decays, they are adamantly against paying any taxes to help replace it. They, too, have no responsibility to any but themselves--their loyalty is to nothing but their bottom line.
The strong underpinnings of our national life were all but destroyed, and there was nothing to replace them. Is it any wonder that we're on the verge of collapse?
7
Earnings per share is the only thing that matters to corporations. Even after the huge tax break the company I work for still laid off workers and continues to lay-off every six months. This year they discontinued a policy on healthcare for retirees which will force everyone with age plus years of service greater than 75 to retire. They are accelerating layoffs even though they cannot hire replacements for any price with the same skills.
6
Of course many have lost faith in the institutions in this country. We have seen the political party in power kowtow to a frightening degree to a mad man - and know that we are all only one deranged tweet from a nuclear war. Of course we no longer believe our institutions will "save us". They won't. Our America is gone.
But we must understand why we've had this profound loss of faith. And that is because, in this country, some 40% of Americans want to destroy the existing institutions. Trump voters want a dictatorship. They want a "show parliament" in which a Republican controlled Senate bows to every wish of their dear leader. They want our courts to be unabashedly partisan. And they want to keep power by any means necessary - and if this means destroying the institutions that have kept this country together for more than 200 years, so be it.
It does not take a majority of citizens for a nation to slide into totalitarianism. A large, rabid minority will do just fine. This is exactly what Trump has. A large, heavily armed minority that now has the rest of us cowering in submission. We have seen a "president" blatantly threatening a former State Department employee - with impeccable credentials - as she was testifying before Congress. And did he meet with any outcry from his voters? None whatsoever.
Institutions only survive when a large enough, and an active enough majority support them. And we can now get a clear view of that democracy we had, in the rearview mirror.
12
@Charles Dodgson
I suspect many of Trump's supporters are precisely those that have lost faith in our 'Institutions'.
Not particularly well informed or educated they are lashing out against a society that they feel has betrayed them. Self-identifying as 'individualists' they believe that you should be able to get ahead through effort and hard work - failing to identify the changes in society that have abandoned them - changes pushed by think tanks like AEI.
They voted for Trump BECAUSE he was an 'outsider' who promised to 'drain the swamp' - to change Washington. He spoke of ending our never ending wars and bringing jobs back to the US. Trump is a demagogue - telling people what they want to hear.
The irony is that conservative think tanks use the phrases these voters want to hear - family, values, freedom, opportunity - even as they destroy the lives of these same people.
7
@Charles Dodgson
Yes,Nixon had the "silent majority" and today's republicans are the "mealy mouthed minority".
Yes! McConnell always chooses what he CAN do for his party over what he SHOULD do for his country. And so end our norms of behavior.
3
Of course many have lost faith in the institutions in this country. We have seen the political party in power kowtow to a frightening degree to a mad man - and know that we are all only one deranged tweet from a nuclear war. Of course we no longer believe our institutions will "save us". They won't. Our America is gone.
But we must understand why we've had this profound loss of faith. And that is because, in this country, some 40% of Americans want to destroy the existing institutions. Trump voters want a dictatorship. They want a "show parliament" in which a Republican controlled Senate bows to every wish of their dear leader. They want our courts to be unabashedly partisan. And they want to keep power by any means necessary - and if this means destroying the institutions that have kept this country together for more than 200 years, so be it.
It does not take a majority of citizens for a nation to slide into totalitarianism. A large, rabid minority will do just fine. This is exactly what Trump has. A large, heavily armed minority that now has the rest of us cowering in submission. We have seen a "president" blatantly threatening a former State Department employee - with impeccable credentials - as she was testifying before Congress. And did he meet with any outcry from his voters? None whatsoever.
Institutions only survive when a large enough, and an active enough majority support them. And we can now get a clear view of that democracy we had, in the rearview mirror.
1
Very important read, thank you.
Allow me to suggest that we rid ourselves of the idea and legal fiction that corporations are people, and as people start participating in our institutions and thus reclaim them.
Perhaps some sort of qualifying test for becoming president, too—we already have a natural born citizen requirement; let’s add needing to pass (a background check? a test like naturalized citizens must pass? an 8th-grade social studies final exam?)?
2
Very important read, thank you.
Allow me to suggest that we rid ourselves of the idea and legal fiction that corporations are people, and as people start participating in our institutions and thus reclaim them.
Perhaps some sort of qualifying test for becoming president, too—we already have a natural born citizen requirement; let’s add needing to pass (a background check? a test like naturalized citizens must pass? an 8th-grade social studies final exam?)?
2
I am an incurable idealist, but I believe there is always a response or backlash to large events in our society. Trump himself is a backlash to government not paying attention to the people in the heartland. There will be a backlash against Trump"s lawlessness and narcissism. Will the backlash be enough to put our society in a healthier direction. Well considering Trumpism as the catalyst for the change, I think we can expect great things.
3
Maybe we have less faith in our institutions because for several decades now right wing media such as the American Enterprise Institute have kept telling Americans that we should have no faith in our institutions.
7
The left keeps telling us as long as we’re really different it will unite us. Well, it doesn’t. People with nothing in common: language, culture, history, ethnicity, values, mores, etc, will act like they do everywhere on earth that people with nothing in common occupy the same country- they’ll disagree about everything. We’ve become the balkans of the Western Hemisphere. The left telling us that everything “American” is bad and the right telling us everything not American is bad.
3
Levin is updating the yarn about "selfish Americans."
It's still an apology for the conservative backlash that's hamstrung America, clothed as a bipartisan broadside. It's an attempt to reframe problems so that real issues aren't addressed.
False equivalences like members of Congress and Trump grandstanding in similar ways, when this President threatens to imprison his opponents, embraces white separatists, and in other ways behaves like a tin-pot dictator.
The public isn't losing trust in the press because journalists post on Twitter - the public doesn't care about Twitter. It's 90% bots, 10% echo chamber.
The "academy" - why not say universities - is populated by researchers knee deep in detail, oblivious to "morality plays." The handful of classes and occasional student outbursts that so galvanize attention are more like commercial breaks.
Baseball players don't remember to bunt? Please. The game is periodically scandalized, and like any long-term institution, corrects gradually.
Americans reification of the military - and I come from a military family - is based on their complete ignorance of it. It's a dangerous attitude, found in Latin America and elsewhere, often linked to democratic failure. The last thing we want to imitate.
Governance is hard. It's sausage making. Americans think their government institutions are more corrupt than they really are. I started a business in Africa. Most Americans have no idea what corruption is.
7
Very important read, thank you.
Allow me to suggest that we rid ourselves of the idea and legal fiction that corporations are people, and as people start participating in our institutions and thus reclaim them.
Perhaps some sort of qualifying test for becoming president, too—we already have a natural born citizen requirement; let’s add needing to pass (a background check? a test like naturalized citizens must pass? an 8th-grade social studies final exam?)
Trump rules the country like one of his bankrupt companies. As a result, the government deficit has increased by $ 1 trillion in a single year without benefiting the majority of US citizens. The difference is that Trump is now protected by the Senate and his party friends, no matter what he does or what crime he commits. He has never gone to prison in the past, BUT at least only he and his debtors have gone bankrupt. Now he is not only bankrupting the country, but also the country's moral integrity. That probably explains the loss of trust in everything, especially in the US institutions.
6
Institutions break down when what we “value” as a culture breaks down. It seems to me that capitalism has won the “values” race. Our culture seems to value acquiring money and status as the ultimate virtue. Money stands above everything else, how to create it and how to keep it....destroy the planet (oil companies) destroy the democracy (FB) all in the name of “job creation”. We are creating our way to irrelevance.
It seems that it began in the 80’s and has continued on ever since. Honesty, integrity, community, etc. have all been supplanted by the acquisition of money and status.
Hopefully Gen Z will not follow in our footsteps.
3
The thing is, everyone thinks it's someone else's fault and job. We spend more time blaming and yelling and literally anything else but trying to fix it. Because it's not "our job". When you see the posts on social media they always point fingers. Which generation is killing whatever, which group of people is most responsible for this or that. Everyone saying take care of "our own" first, but when asked for help with "their own": "Well it's not my responsibility to help them." The lack of accountability and responsibility is staggering, and everyone is to blame for allowing it to get this bad. EVERYONE.
2
I slogged through this article because its premise is undeniably true. Americans have lost faith in institutions, with the possible exception of the military. Since I hadn’t noticed the credentials of its author, I hoped to find some useful advice about how to address this serious problem. That was a naïve assumption on my part.
The author suggests we take personal responsibility for the integrity of the institutions of which we are members. The author speaks for the American Enterprise Institute, the right-wing think tank for which personal responsibility is the answer to every problem. The advice of the article is therefore entirely predictable.
The best way to restore the confidence of Americans in our institutions is to replace the gangster in the White House with an honest and competent human being. No one can do that on their own. We will have to do that together.
9
The current paradigm sees most adults view the world through the lens of their own “exceptional” victimhood.
The effect originated with Fox News in the 90’s and accelerated through both sides of politics on FB/Twitter.
When people look through that lens the only good institutions (or individuals within them) are those that honour their position of exceptional victimhood.
There is no easy way out of this given the economical gains of making sub groups feel uniquely victimised. If things are to get better, they’re going to get a lot worse first.
A distillation of all of my responses to the question: It happened when we forgot the phrase:"Money isn't everything".
7
Absolutely. The ‘highest and best use’ of real estate is not always the use that generates the most commercial profit. Capitalism is great when the buyer and seller each actually have a choice to transact. Money does not actually reflect value anymore.
4
The erosion of trust in institutions is not merely an American malaise, but one that has affected many liberal democracies over the past few decades. The lack of engagement in the political discourse by the overwhelming majority of citizens seems to be an existential threat to the ongoing functioning of those societies in their current forms.
2
If we had not made money god, and worshiped its greatest acquirers, and treated those who serve others as dupes and losers, we would not be where we are. Which is a plutocracy, whose wealthy members depend on and enjoy the suffering of those less fortunate, with few exceptions. I only see that getting worse, until the day, if it ever comes, that the poor and dispossessed are sufficiently ground down, reviled and laughed at collective to scream Enough!” And do what needs doing. Whatever the whirlwind.
I will be long dead. My life now is mt family and my new faith, Greek Orthodoxy, which called to me at the lowest moment of my life (I am not remotely Greek, but found Greek Orthodoxy the truest home for me). I love my fellow parishioners, who have warmly welcomed me and my family. Daily prayer, Scripture reading, attending services and classes and study groups all give me hope, Joy, peace. Because, having lost all faith in humanity to do the right thing, I can only go on in the hole of a better hereafter, and at least lead a life assuming there is. It is far more satisfying than hedonistic pursuits. It is very liberating not to feel one has to “keep up with the Kardashians.”
4
Mr. Levin's emphasis on character seems nostalgic and naive in the Age of Trump and hyper-capitalism.
As anyone who works in finance, law or politics will tell you, character, "is a quaint old fashioned notion".
It is all about money and power, baby. No one get promoted for their character. People don't become billionaires because of their character. Ask Zuckerberg.
When you come right down to it, in today's America Character is a severe handicap that will do nothing for you except possibly make you lose your job.
Character, in today's America, lives with the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.
And that is the basis of America's problems.
2
What's been eroded is the fiduciary way of being. What's that happens, trust - being trustworthy AND trusting (it's a bi-directional virtue) - loses the structure on which it works.
As part of his lengthy hand wringing and wonderment Levin states "we can’t quite seem to get a handle on just where those roots lie." It is abundantly clear to me that the roots lie in unbridled capitalism which has resulted in a two tiered society, the lack of decent paying jobs that provide hope for the future along with one's self respect, the decline of affordable education, and support for the family structure. In short, people know they have increasingly been given the shaft with little hope on the horizon. But our attention is always directed away from our economic system towards blaming everything and everyone else.
12
Some of this began when (in your terms) people in the upper tier devised a way (outsourcing and importing) to give people in the lower tier things that the lower tier yearned for to make them feel like the upper tier. In this exchange the lower tier helped and encouraged the upper tier to tie the knot and build the gallows upon which the lower tier would be dispatched. Now the upper tier no longer sees a use for the lower tier except as gullible voters to help the upper tier fully draw the ladder up the escape hatch and have the world to themselves.
2
We as individuals and a society as a whole are in the constant process of trying to rediscover what gives value to our lives. It is one one big mid life crisis as we face life with conflicting goals.
As others have said our society for decades or perhaps has been centered on growth, power and money, but we are beginning to face the limits to these things. We fall back on our families and immediate friends, but find that these relationships are in flux and our attention has often been fixated on the media cloud which seems or have no more substance than any other cloud.
Questions come to mind. Are we happy or able to deal with sitting by ourselves in a closed room with no distractions? How much of our lives are dedicated to our immediate real communities? How much do we listen to others? Are we consumed with the question of having enough money or resources and how can we ensure our economic security? Until we are able to confront some of these questions head on find our heading in this world is almost impossible.
In combination with the lies of Vietnam, such as Gulf of Tonkin, the trends identified here began in earnest after the Kennedy assassination and the public relations pablum of the Warren Commission. It became apparent to anyone who paid attention that the US Government and many of the people charged with the public trust could no longer be trusted. When RFK and MLK, Jr. were equally assassinated, with many strange questions arising afterwards, and Nixon and Watergate followed, it became more than a trend. And it is not that any of these people were worthy of saint-hood. Merely human beings. But the institutions entrusted with finding the truth and serving the American people were not able to do their jobs. In some cases, they tried, such as Congress in the mid 1970's and its House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation. However, other institutions, such as the CIA, obfuscated and otherwise refused to cooperate. Subpoenaed witness after subpoenaed witness suddenly met an unfortunate and unexpected demise. This loss of faith was earned. Subsequent governments then brought us Iran-Contra, for example, under Reagan-Bush; Bill Clinton and the DNC campaign finance scandal; GW Bush and the lies of the Iraq War. And there has been virtually zero accountability. And so it is not surprising it has extended out into and permeated the greater culture.
5
I agree with Elizabeth Warren that "capitalism without regulation is theft." In the early days of our country, corporate power was suspect. Many of the colonial constitutions required corporations to serve the public interest. If they violated the public trust, the government could step in and appoint receivers to straighten things out. Some form of this would help. We all need to work to restore faith in our teachers, courts, congresses and other institutions and we need to raise and educate citizens capable of ethical and civil behaviors.
8
Capitalism is great but only if all parties to the transaction actually have a choice-an option to say yes or no. When the subject is a necessity the buyer has no choice and no power. Who could haggle over the price of a heart by-pass or a potable source of water?
3
Trust, people will not commit themselves without trust. When the President continues to receive support by resonating people’s negative and disparaging attitudes while continually lying and spreading disinformation, it’s because trust with all others in our society is absent. That is our problem, and Trump’s behaviors are symptoms.
While I tend to see two or more sides to every issue. a substantive answer to the question posed by Mr. Levin is not terribly complicated. 1) We need look no further than the still-revered great communicator Mr. Reagan. He told us (and convinced many), that Government is the problem. If we believe government is a problem, and not something that serves us, then clearly we're not going to have faith or trust. 2) While it would be a mistake that at any time in the past politics was a warm fuzzy, cooperative, bipartisan enterprise, the next villain--Mr. Gingrich amped up the blood sport aspect of politics to the point where governing and legislation have become lost amidst partisan infighting.
Top off with a strong dose of Rush and FOX news...a steady, 24/7 drip, and you have a perfect storm of mutual condemnation, even hatred.
A better question might be--why should we expect anything but a loss of faith in our institutions?
8
There have been significant failures in leadership in the private, public and non profit sectors. What about our universities? We’ve seen the senior leadership at Penn State, Michigan State, and Ohio State lie after scandals were uncovered in their athletic programs.
2
@BK The larger problem is the demonization of intellectualism, education, science, reasoning, and facts.
1
When institutions and their role in society are seen today primarily from the perspective of power dynamics played out through the role of the various 'isms that pervade our interpretive lens, it's hard to discuss any universal standards of how one should be shaped by the institutions we participate in.
If anything, identity politics contributes to that lack of faith.
The rise of the self being shaped by how to market one's brand, doesn't help any, because identity places each person onto a continuum: left v. right. With greater polarization and emotion at stake in every performance. the struggle to gain influence grows.
1
I was hoping to find an interesting, detailed discussion of where the last few years have been different from the long-term decline of trust that writers in other decades have talked about, from Jonathan Schell ("the credibility gap" in talking about Vietnam and Watergate) or Robert Putnam and Theda Skocpol.
Instead, we get this vague, cloudy set of concerns. I wish there were more for me to think about after reading it.
4
@Sherman Dorn
There is plenty here to think about in this article, as evidenced by some of the very insightful comments of fellow readers. It might be helpful if you think more deeply about what was actually said, rather than being concerned with what was not said.
3
Cross the military, at least its brass, off my list of respected institutions. When I read Phil Rucker and Carol Leonnig’s account of President Trump’s behavior in the Tank at the Pentagon in 2017—the one in which the one of the few civilians, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, was the only one to call out the President’s reprehensible bad-mouthing of the country’s service members—I lost respect for the military, too. My role as an informed citizen is to pay attention to those institutions that continue to violate my personal and the public trust and vote to change them for the better with my dollars, ballot, and energy.
2
@Jennifer Drayton I share some of your dismay, but please remember our military is shaped by a chain of command. Orders from a superior in rank, unless they are illegal, must be obeyed. Our military could not function absent this structure. It's not a culture where you speak truth to power, unless your truth is requested by the powers that be.
It's no coincidence that loss of confidence in institutions parallels the rise in global capital and corporate power and the abdication of responsibility to the community that many American corporations once took seriously. Of course the American Enterprise Institute would not recognize that as a core driver of the weakening of families and communities, but it was not that long ago that families could count on jobs, career growth, health insurance, pensions, even college scholarships in exchange for loyalty to an employer. It was often a single employer that was the cornerstone of a community, and the unions that advocated for the workers had near-equal standing with the boards. It all started fraying in the 80's when Reagan Republicans took on unions and started winning, and then globalization freed corporations to look elsewhere for cheaper workers and fewer regulations. It didn't start with the schools, it started with American businesses turning their backs on American workers. All the other institutions fell like dominoes. Now Americans are each expected to build their own "brands" and compete in the marketplace as inidividuals. And if you fail, well it's your own fault. That's where we are now - a nation of individuals untethered to anything except the need to survive, pitted against each other. Works out well for a few at the top, that's for sure.
698
This. Our money over people mentality. Cheaper goods over protecting the environment. Profit for now over stability for future generations.
93
Thank you for your comment. I would add that corporations and institutions live off the moral values of their members. It's not only cheap labor that corporations are seeking, they are also getting a sense of community, fidelity and trust that their hires bring with them and that they don't have to pay for. The global market, however, works hard at destroying exactly these values of community and trust. Its valuations depend on the absence of cooperation, sharing, and trust. Its permanent search for more wealth is well illustrated by Trump and by the policies favored by the American Enterprise institute.
58
@HumplePi AEI this is easy to nail down if you are intellectually honest and somewhat analytical: the GOP in this Nation and their ilk in others have been in a relentless war against the foundations of liberal democracy!
The GOP is an unrelenting juggernaut against modernity, truth, and anything that remotely opposes their regressive march toward theocratic authoritarian plutocracy (TAP).
Over the last 40 years they've insidiously and cleverly groomed a loyal base of GOP voters.
They've fostered apathy, confusion, and cynicism in others to tamp down non-GOP participation.
They've gamed the system to gain unfair structural advantage.
They are really a MINORITY Party but they reign!
And they've seized Judiciary control that assures a light brake (if any) of their march toward TAP for years even if they lose legislative control.
The GOP works to divide us; to be selfishly complacent with our insular life and view others as competitors in a zero-sum game.
They are our greatest enemy now if you truly value the ideals of liberal democracy upon which we were founded however fledgling and imperfectly.
We could survive the money oriented GOP if "all" it cared about was rational (right or wrong) free-market license.
What we will NOT survive - what we canNOT ignore as Patriotic Americans - is that this is NOT ALL the GOP wants.
70
It is probably true that human society and institutions are inherently unstable. They are always being nibbled and torn at the edges and must be constantly and continually repaired and maintained for them to survive and thrive. It is also true that there have always been individuals who instinctively exploit failures of institutions at any given time to benefit themselves. The delicate balance in the constant tug of war between forces of maintenance and exploitation has been breached because of social media where a single unscrupulous individual could weld enormous power and influence. They can tear down a social institution for their own financial or political benefit. Let's hope that over the long run the mania of social media will die down and our society as a whole will learn how to process fake news and the malignant effect of social media, the same way as we learn how to treat cancer.
60
The military is hardly the model institution that the author claims since it is afflicted with both misogyny and white supremacy.
The problem really is not our loss of faith in institutions, which merely reflect the values of its members. The problem is greater than that and has been with us in various guises for a very long time.
1
It’s precisely this sort of righteous, incredibly reductive, tribally-and-superficially way of looking at the world that is certainly near the core of the problems this article discusses. Are there people in the military (approximately 1.6 million active duty personnel, 1 million reserves, 1.6 million employed full time in its supply chains) who hold misogynistic beliefs, or who believe that white skin confers some special way of being and status? For sure. Is the entire US military wholly “misogynistic and white supremacist”? No.
Let’s hope for more granular, thoughtful discourse, which begins with the belief that individuals are, to a great extent, sovereign agents in their lives.
1
@Omar Alan The OP did not say the entire US military is wholly misogynistic and white supremacist. You did. They stated the military is afflicted with it. It is. You applied the righteous, incredibly reductive, tribal and superficial way of looking at the comment.
1
I was in law school in 1983-86, right about the time that "big law" began the first systemic mass layoffs in a field that was once known as a safe future for those lucky enough to get a position. So we, who are now about 60, were greeted by institutions who said, "we will not take care of you." All the other institutions the AEI author mentions are the same. The message is unmistakable. You're on your own. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Your government won't help - less benefits. Your job won't help - less health care. Your union won't help - less bargaining power. Fealty to institutions is a two-way street. Gordon Gecko's "Greed is good" was a recognition of that growing cynicism in 1987, just as I was graduating. So here we are, 32 years later, and this author is right about the demise of institutions. What did you think was going to happen?
AEI was around then. What were they saying?
452
@Stevie
AEI is one of the think tanks that pushed for all the changes you note....
tax cuts, reduction of consumer and environmental protection, cuts in the social safety net
They were one of the groups pushing for regime change in Iraq under Bush. I wonder if they take any responsibility for that fiasco.
I just love how conservatives who talk of liberty and opportunity do all they can to limit both for everyone else.
70
“They”, shouldn’t have taught all us serfs, to read.
Peasants with education will likely pick up their pitchforks and aim them with precision and real commitment.
6
Institutions are supposed to serve the people and they are supposed to be for the people, however the free market capitalism demands that people serve the institutions.
It creates the environment where money is the criteria for measuring success. When you entice people to worship money, it also corrupts the character.
When we see head of institutions with their huge power are solely engaged in self enrichment, a leader who is supposed to be a moral force lies constantly, where alternate facts becomes an acceptable phrase, the rich and powerful goes UN-punished what do you expect?
In spite of that, good and ordinary honest people are trying their best to cope.
153
@The Observer
Even when not 'solely engaged in self enrichment', institutions are not neutral players and of necessity
the successful ones become enmeshed in economic,
political, social and sometimes military spheres of
influence. We should be careful about 'institutions'
as a species. They may do great good while at the
same time doing great harm. The Catholic Church,
one of our most enduring institutions precisely
because it is so enmeshed in all the above spheres,
comes to mind . . .
5
@The Observer Well said. Our culture is very sick right now. We are out of balance. Moral leadership is lacking everywhere you look. Yet, yes, we labor on and most people are doing right everyday. We just need better leaders.
4
People can’t trust institutions to stand by them anymore: job security, for one, is completely out the window. So people necessarily have to focus primarily on taking care of themselves first, building their personal brands and keeping a foot out the door. If people were more secure in their own positions then they could relax and focus on higher issues like loyalty and character and service. It’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: of you are worried about feeding yourself and keeping a roof over your head you won’t be worried about much else.
171
As someone who works with military veterans—I agree—the military is an exception. However, there are reasons for that. Military personnel and veterans encounter a social safety net that most Americans will never see. It’s a well funded component of our society and its members basic needs are met.
Maybe if incorporate the collectivism and funding found in the military some of our other social institutions can be reinvigorated. However, how do you expect “social responsibility” when over 40 million Americans live below international standards of poverty?
8
The entire structure of our economy has dramatically changed since WWII. In the past, companies would take in new employees and train them for particular jobs if those employees demonstrated and aptitude for the job. A long resume of educational and other credentials wasn't the most important thing for the employer. Today businesses have no long-term commitment to it's employees. They would prefer to hire employees who pay for their own training and skill development, their own health care needs, their own retirement plans etc. Today's businesses would prefer if everyone were an independent contractor who would perform a specific job and leave. People have become cynical about the concept of commitment. Commitment goes two ways. People are more on their own than ever. Unfortunately, government is losing its commitment to providing a social safety net when people fall on hard times. This alienates people further. The rules of the game have changed and practically everyone is subject to the same ruthless logic.
232
This seems to be a lofty, valid argument. But I read it to say that our venerable institutions should be able to straitjacket individuals' natural instincts and neuroses into conformity to traditional prosocial norms. Really? Should improvement start with the institutions, or with the individuals? It would be a slight exaggeration, but only slight, to suggest that Fred Trump cultivated a son whose individuals flaws have put big dents in some heretofore healthy institutions. The power lies in people's hands, not "the people."
2
This article is another example of the pot calling the kettle black.
I remember Mitch McConnell being interviewed shortly after Barack Obama was sworn into his first term and being asked what the goal of the Republican Party was? His response: To see the Obama presidency fail.
During my career as a technical manager, I was required to attend a a Cost Control workshop where we were asked to chant: "Greed is good"!. many times during the talk.
Mr Levin, We reap as we sow!
7
What a wise and beautiful column. It is rare to find something this helpful and lucid and simple. Just reading it slowly allowed me to return to my work in a better frame of mind and with a more open heart. However, the column describes but does not address the major obstacle we face in this regard. If we are in institutions that are in a kind of decline--let's say the way many people think of the universities these days, as having abandoned their essential principles and as being run by ideologically driven bureaucrat-administrators who draw tremendous salaries and leave students and families poor--then how would we let that institution form us in a good way?
Focusing on what is working in an institution might be one strategy. The freedom to teach might be an example here. For example, what does this freedom demand of one? What does one owe to one's students? But the harder question is how to be trustworthy in one's institution in the face of the decline of the institution itself, when it no longer truly holds to its obligation to nourish freedom of inquiry and pass on an inheritance of knowledge and to pursue truth and instead takes on cultural and social goals that are politically and ethically controversial and have little to do with the institution's essential goals?
2
Mr. Levin: I have lost faith in conservatism!
9
The US government, and too much at state level, far from affording economic security and protection from the depredations of capitalism and international competitors, has de facto declared open season on the American public over the last few decades. The areas in which this has occurred are a lengthy burden to list. So, I believe the low levels of trust are largely derived from this.
11
No institution, indeed no form of government, no economic system, is any more trustworthy than the people who run it. As more and more power has fallen into (or been seized by) fewer and fewer hands, the moral character of those in power has become more and more relevant. Too many in power now lack what I see as the most essential quality: a sense of fair play.
9
Furthermore the conservative movement has removed all consequences for bad behavior. Not a single person was held accountable for the mortgage crisis. Any attempt to change the system to make it more accountable is met with overwhelming resistance via the Republican Party.
4
Excellent article. As a lawyer I find this article to be on point for our court system. We have lawyers who only ask what benefits their client, not the ends that the court system seeks to obtain. Especially true I family law. I have been disheartened by judges who openly call their court a “mill”, indicating that they cannot devote their attention nor concern for individual cases. But the problem isn’t confined to bad lawyers. In my opinion we have wrongly attempted to impose outdated budget ideas on our courts when we should be expanding their budgets to better service the public. We know more about mental illness, conflict, psychology, etc... than we did in the 70s. But we don’t use this knowledge today because we don’t invest in our institutions. The result is that lawyers don’t aim for justice because that’s not a realistic goal given the decrepitude of the institution.
8
"The military is the most conspicuous exception and also the most unabashedly formative of our national institutions — molding men and women who clearly take a standard of behavior and responsibility seriously."
Methinks the author of this column never served, at least not in the post-Vietnam military.
To the larger point, the character is meld by the common purpose. That has been destroyed by the identity politics freak show.
The sense of purpose determines values, and values shape the character. No common purpose = no character. In the absence of character performance is the only game in town.
Enjoy while it lasts.
3
I would ask that anyone speaking for an institution speak primarily to give clear information........not spin (which is soft lying), not putting the best face on it, not omitting needed facts.
Perhaps the best example at present is the National Archives on Women thru the years agitating for a hearing and rights. Their exhibition at present showcases among others the Women’s March Jan 2017 the day after Trump’s inauguration. They blurred Trump’s name on signs and other terms. ........In other words, purporting to be a truthful record, they destroyed the signs proclaiming the entire reason for the March.
And this is supposedly the archival record for future history. (Imagine showing a picture of MLK speaking but blacking out the words.)
6
This is a thoughtful analysis and wise prescription — that people be more accountable to the organizations they belong to or work for. (The finger-pointing in these comments doesn’t bode well, however.) Perhaps “rugged” American individualism is partly to blame, giving way to a self-serving desire to put one’s own interests first. Canadians have a little more collectivism (and perhaps even obedience) in their blood and tend to retain more respect for their institutions.
5
@Larry McCallum
One of THE biggest problems is that people are too accountable and obedient to the organizations they serve and not to "doing the right thing ".
1
But isn’t that sort of accountability really just self-serving, i.e., going along with things as a path of least resistance, a means of advancing within the organization? Isn’t true accountability standing up for the organization’s mission and the people it serves?
1
Institutions shape us, yes, but we don't owe them loyalty. One of my professors reminded me, many years ago, that our loyalty is owed to living, breathing human beings, not to institutions, which have no bowels of compassion with which to feel loyalty in return. It is less important whether or not we are losing faith in our institutions, to me, than that we are losing faith in each other.
7
People within institutions will take institutions seriously when the same institutions take people seriously. Duties run both ways.
When every institution behaves like a Taylorist, profit-maximizing factory, nobody will feel enough loyalty to trust them and acknowledge a higher duty to the ethos of those institutions. Note that the military does try to take care of its veterans...
9
In Mr. Levin’s search for causes, he could do little better than to secure a copy of 1973’s The Private Future, in which architect Martin Pawley forecast that ongoing technological advance would correlate with the disintegration of institutions like family, community, and society; prophesying that we were evolving into a nation of atomized, self absorbed, self interested individuals, prone to escapism through media, drug use, and gambling; always viewing the world from private space, either on big screen televisions, or through the windows of speeding cars.
While Pawley had correctly forecast the overall declining interest in public life, he did not foresee that its remaining participants would seek to convert public service into a reality TV show: he did not see that a narcissist needs an audience.
10
A thought provoking outline of a social crisis which raises the question of whether our existing institutions can survive this crisis.
This piece is particularly timely on the eve of the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump and your expression, "This social crisis has followed upon a collapse of our confidence in institutions — public, private, civic and political. But we have not given enough thought to just what that loss of confidence entails and why it’s happening."
In the weeks ahead as the world watches on live television, we will witness your thesis being put to the test of whether or not the representative democratic form of government created by the U.S. Constitution can find the behaviors of the President are functional to the best interests of the people.
Indeed, considering the huge investment in national security and the economic power of the our private enterprise in the global economy, whether the denial of climate change, which the Trump administration and his party promotes, may be dysfunctional to the survival of our species?
It seems to me that the important bonds of trust in our scientists, laboratories and inventors, who find that the continued use of fossil fuels will lead to catastrophic consequences, is a matter of grave concern. And blocks possible solutions that must be, because of the planetary nature of the problem, investigated and promoted by international cooperation are being destroyed by the foreign policies of this Administration.
3
@james jordan Take a trip through many areas of rural America if you haven't done so.
There are millions of high school kids right now padding their resumes for college applications doing precisely what you are talking about. Colleges want leaders. It isn’t enough to do the hard work or have dedication to a team or a cause, you have to be a leader. This focus turns the “we” to “I” in many extra curriculars. Wannabe ivy leaguers are looking for flashy charities - digging wells in Africa or identifying a need and starting their own charities where they don’t have to work with others to show leadership. Until we promote substance over performance to our youth we will never see it in future adults.
14
"How Did Americans Lose Faith in Everything?"
As many commenters have intimated, causing Americans to lose faith in everything appears to have been deliberately brought about by design by certain forces including Levin's own American Enterprise Institute. Because only when people lose faith in everything can malevolent, predatory concepts like corporate personhood, "deregulation" (a misnomer, since advocates of this favor the imposition of regulations that privilege businesses over humans), "right to work" legislation (another misleading, Orwellian term), the Laffer curve, Republican House members having the gall to form a "Freedom Caucus", and neoliberal economic orthodoxy in general ever gain traction.
19
It's not so hard to understand. Try where advanced capitalism meets modern technology.
7
Aside from the valid mentions of “institutional dereliction” and the need for “institutional reforms,” this article focuses on how individuals should or shouldn’t act. But for detailed examples of how the current corrupted state of the social structures themselves is actually the major problem, and for some steps toward solutions, see the 2018 book “America, Compromised” by Lawrence Lessig.
4
As a young person I feel the explanation is pretty straightforward: we have learned we need to look out for ourselves. Our institutions (employers/government/churches) won’t. Of course journalists are elevating themselves on Twitter; they could be laid off any minute and best have a reputation to springboard into their next role. Your church could bail on you as soon as you come out, and most my age move every 2 years for work so no use forming deep roots or trusting community bonds with your neighbors, who are likely equally transient. If the machine treats the cogs as replaceable, the cogs stop caring for the machine.
36
AEI describes itself as "committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening free enterprise"
This Think Tank is one of the reasons Americans don't trust their Institutions. They push for "lower taxes, fewer protections for consumers and the environment, and cuts to the social safety net" They were also one of the driving forces behind regime change in Iraq.
It appears that they are one of the successors to Project for a New American Century, the neo-conservative think tank that pushed for regime change all over the world including Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, the Sudan and Iran. Their 'New American Century' has been an abject failure in 'promoting democratic regimes ' and instead left chaos in its wake.
How hypocritical for a member of a think tank that actively destroys the values of our nation to then complain that Americans have lost faith in its Institutions.
28
It's pretty rich that Mr. Levin bemoans the fact that Americans have lost faith in institutions when the American Enterprise Institute, of which he is a part of, has been sowing seeds of distrust for decades. The policies that AEI have put forth over the years just pours gasoline on the problems, which has led us to this point.
36
"His lifetime one-man show" is so apt.
He is spectacle, entertainment, performance.
A country needs substance, even if it is "from many, one" - but Trump is anti-substance. All dazzle-dazzle.
A working democratic republic requires people who understand that it takes effort to maintain community, and a sense of shared responsibility. These notions are foreign to Trump, and to many in the GOP are following like lemmings.
5
I've said it before, Reagan and Thatcher began the transformation from populations working with the government to help each other (New Deal/Great Society) to the greed and selfishness of the individual. "No help from the government (i.e. society, i.e. the village) for you!" The "haves" got more to have and the "have nots" got more of naught.
13
It feels as if the church has been engaged in "livid political theater" since the days of old Babylon... What do you think the "divine right" of Kings actually meant? Or for that matter, what was that shining city on a hill that the Puritans founded in New England? How about the role of the Church both opposing slavery and defending slavery here in the US in the years immediately prior to the civil war? Or, a bit more recently in helping to organize the civil right's movement?
FWIW, I agree that people's faith in institutions has changed over time, however, I don't think that it is the institutions themselves that have changed. Rather, I think that folks are outgrowing them...
Pretending that what we are seeing now is anything new or different really hurts your argument
3
Institutions are only as strong as the social fabric, moral compass of people. Best way to find balance, perspective on what it means to be a healthy western society, get a passport, travel and immerse yourselves in other societies, without judgement. Best lessons in life come through seeing the world through others eyes.
8
A very thought-provoking article. The Right will blame the destruction of religion/churches, the Left will blame capitalism. Both have valid points. There are some very good and moral reasons that institutions were and are challenged, but their decimation seems to be caused by the underbelly of selfishness, greed and self-absorption. Churches preached conformity, hypocrisy, racism and sexism, and intolerance, which deserved condemnation, but they do so much good and remind everyone to give, be kind and serve others. Colleges give one the chance to find oneself, think critically and be open-minded, but they have failed to teach civil discourse and discussion, and advanced a theory of moral relativism that leaves everyone feeling empty.
I do see people in search of some sort of routine and spiritual outpost, however. The problem is that it is splintered because of all the commercial “choices.” Many people who no longer embrace the routine of churchgoing, have opted for the cults of cross-fit, yoga, diet and exercise crazes, and “self-help” gurus. Not sure if they are worse or better, but they do not seem to be making any of us more civil, advanced and connected with our neighbors.
8
I am not nearly so pessimistic about our institutions. The ones I know best are universities. The author of this column laments that too many academics choose to “perform” on a “stage” instead of engaging in the “pursuit of truth through learning and teaching.” But in my experience there are fifty pursuers for every performer. The problem is the performers are much more visible (and political) so they appear representative of universities when in fact they’re not. Traditional “pursuers” are in the lab, in the library or at the podium trying hard to figure out tough problems and explain things clearly. If you want to gauge the health of a university as an institution don’t look on Twitter. And if you do look there don’t generalize from what you see. “Publicity or perish” is not a general academic value.
12
@Cal Prof : This plays right into our worship of celebrity and leaders in general.
Can you advance in academia if you don't publish or don't publish much? Are those who don't have publicity stuck on the sidelines, and do they earn significantly less than those who do?
An institution's true values reflect how it compensates its people: those it values more earn more.
1
In answer to your question, yes you can. Like much in life, “It depends.”
/s/ Associate Professor
@mlbex : These are really good questions. I think academics struggle with how to answer them. If you do traditional high-quality research (which I know can be hard to define) then promoting it on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, TED talks etc. is often considered ok. But if you “overclaim” about how significant your research is, or become just a vacuous talking head who bounces from CNN to the latest trendy podcast without ever doing new research, that will probably be condemned and not rewarded. The answer to your question is really “most of us try not to reward publicity for its own sake.”
We glorify leaders to the point where we start to believe that if you're not a leader, you don't count. Good leadership is important, but so is having a good team comprised of people who play well and support the group effort.
When we idolize the leaders, we sell everyone else short. This divides the team into indifferent performers, and wannabe leaders. That is not how you make a robust team in sport or in any other enterprise.
10
We all have trust in institutions. It’s just that we feel a lot less trust in organizations that have behaved ineptly or dishonestly.
For example, I trust my cat. But I also trust the vet, and the nice people at the pet food store. I also have learned that some brands of catnip are better than others, and that some makers of pet food consistently deliver a product that my cat will eat.
I trust the school of veterinary medicine where the vet got her degree, and I trust the makers of the medications and treatments that she recommends. I have trust (mostly) in other cat owners, and I’m happy that an entire internet has been constructed for us to share pictures and videos.
My cat knows nothing about this vast web of institutional trust, which all people have in the things that really matter to them. Neither, it appears, does Mr. Cohen and his (sigh) American Enterprise Institute.
5
Good systems, systems that are efficient, fair, consistent, work well, are incredibly vulnerable to bad actors. Additionally, “Systems,” including public institutions such as academia, the military, agencies of government, community organizations, etc., all require the good faith participation of all members. Institutions have an amount of public good will afforded to them. But public good will can be “used up.”
Trump appears to see the Office of the Presidency, the respect afforded him, the public good will towards any President, as something that exists that he can use up, that its his to do with whatever he sees fit. It isn’t. The Office of the President is only on-loan to whomever is filling the post presently. It actually belongs to the country, the people. Any given President has a responsibility to turn The Office over to the next President in good standing (ideally in better condition than he got it, but at least not tarnished, its reputation soiled).
Trump doesn’t act in a manner that demonstrates that he is aware that his actions need to be of sufficient integrity, law-abiding, modeling honor that is supposed to serve as a touchstone for the citizens.
Democracy requires most everyone working in good faith towards the public good. Senators, Representatives, Governors and Mayors across our nation must realize and act as if they understand the offices they hold do not belong to them.
These Offices are merely on loan...
.
8
Several solutions are needed, but the most important is this: require every young adult (no exceptions!) to spend no less than 24 months in a nationally-recognized service program. Require them to live, eat, and work together. This will solve the problem that Americans currently share no common culture at all. We need to get Americans from different backgrounds in face-to-face moments. Even their griping about the service will, itself, be a kind of common experience they can share and take with them into the future.
15
Look at what happens with the 737 Max. The manufacturer has already been shown to have put their corporate interests above all else, the FAA backed them when every other industrialized aeronautical agency grounded them until it became too embarrassing. Our elected officials have been silent other than some grandstanding. No doubt the airlines are busy working with Boeing on 'rebranding'. Look at the opioid crisis, same song different key. Unfettered capitalism, weak government oversight, taxpayers foot the bill, erosion of public faith. So many other examples.
19
Add the National Archives to the list of Institutions that we can no longer trust.
17
It seems pretty obvious that when you have an economy and a labor force that works brilliantly for a small minority, while the majority see falling or stagnant incomes, far fewer benefits with often no job security, then trust in institutions will erode among the majority.
It seems pretty obvious that when you have a political system that works brilliantly for a tiny minority of wealthy people and corporations, while the majority see cuts in social services, underfunded schools, the threat of medicare and social security going away, stripping of affordable healthcare, corrupt and self-serving political "leaders", then trust in institutions will erode among the majority.
I see my parents. in-laws, and others of their generation financially stable and comfortable in their retirement filled with travel, paid-off homes, and income-producing second homes, a luxurious benefit of being born at the right time and making decent choices. As a Gen X'er, I am educated, work hard, try to make decent choices yet I saw my house value decline to the point of worthlessness in 2009, which has still is not recovered, non-existent job security, income that barely keeps up with the costs of everything, and frankly not much faith that I'll have any kind of retirement before my mid-70's. I am worried for my children's generation which may be even worse off.
So yes, people are tired, PO'd, cynical of the government, capitalism and corporations.
15
When institution's justification is measured in dollars there is no reason to have faith in institutions. Corporate charters were a grant, not a guaranteed one, to form an entity to serve any number of ends, now it has one and we no longer consider that we have a right to demand a public good of the contracts that are granted so cheaply. Christian Churches use their power and voice to support the rich and gain their own wealth, contrary to the book they claim to promote. Our police forces have militarized contrary to the tradition that goes back to the Bobbies to not be like the hated gendarmes in France. Our courts consistently uphold the Corporate veil in one instance the pierce it in the next instance whichever way the powerful winds blow. Party loyalty trumps duty and national loyalty. The media has been bought out. Social media sells to the highest bidder. Success is only measured in dollars, integrity can't compete.
6
We have an opportunity to teach children morality for thirteen years in our school systems but don't dedicate one hour of class time to that subject. When there is an issue in the media we hold seminars on it, bullying, gangs, drugs, alcohol. That's not enough. Moral education should start with how to take turns on the playground and advance through age appropriate issues to moral philosophy in grade 12. People will say that it's a parents responsibility. Moral education won't interfere with lessons from parents. In some cases it might be the only moral education a child gets. I'm not talking about prayer in school or the Ten Commandments, but a non-controversial curriculum acceptable to all. Start teaching the kids.
7
@P. J. Brown :
Yes. Teach the kids.
But, whatever you do, Do NOT adequately fund the school.
There is no civilisation unless we all agree to act civilly. Laws cannot make that happen only each person’s personal integrity can.
2
The institution of the church used to be the primary place where you were expected to speak and act virtuously. The other institutions have rules and standards to follow, but are primarily places one was expected to be competent and productive.
With the loss of the church as an institution (mostly through the church's self-harm and failure to adapt) for many people, they have taken to trying to demonstrate their virtue in other spheres, particularly politics, where we do the most good by solving problems, not signalling virtue. We need a church replacement where people can admit to their sins and repent for them through good works to others. And we then need to remind people to leave their church (or replacement church) views at church when engaging in politics. Using politics to signal virtue has made left and right irreconcilable, because we don't compromise with virtue, so we can't compromise with our political opponents.
4
Our general culture with its focus on consumerism and individualism, does not seem to be able to sustain a conversation on virtue. Without virtuous members and leadership committed to duties and actions which are directed to a mission and purpose beyond the individual, duties and actions which may entail personal sacrifice, no institution will be able to stand.
2
Perhaps ironically, The MLB Hall of Fame is used in this essay. Kids are taught from a young age: use your institution to achieve success and fame. Become a hero. Become THE BEST, by any means necessary. Hustle. Do whatever you have to do to get there. Messages like, If you are not cheating you are not trying gain momentum. Get in that Great Hall. History will forget the small moral breaches. Secular eternal life, worldly fame, get in the books. So, the thesis of this essay is appropriate. We need to turn the message "become a hero" on its head. Don't become a hero to enter The Great Hall, all exclusive; but work together to create a Great Hall where all are included. Recognize the hero in everyone. A Great Hall where humility and empathy are MOST valued. Less exclusive status, more inclusive community.
2
This story helps illustrate my point.
https://nyti.ms/2TvJ1ZU
The message kids learn: Just win baby, even at the expense of moral character. That is the problem