Sublime

According to Putnam, the more we prioritize our private bubbles over public life, the more we disconnect from our local surroundings. This has weakened American democracy. Fewer people are engaged in politics, and those who do are often at the political poles. With less social capital, our neighborhoods are connected by fewer informal, reciprocal t... See more

The postindustrial era has concentrated political and economic power in just a few hands and denied ordinary people control of their own lives. Overwhelmed by unfathomably large forces, Americans can no longer think and act as fellow citizens. We look for answers in private panaceas, fixed ideas, group identities, dreams of the future and the past,

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Protest is one of the basic acts of citizenship, and in some contexts (for example, the civil rights movement) it’s an expression of faith in the power of democratic institutions to bring change—the vigilance of a free press, the impartiality of the law, the conscience or self-interest of elected officials, the movability of public opinion. But the

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