Sublime

we are less engaged with the people we actually live among, and, as a result, we behave less well towards them than we might otherwise do. We are less courteous, less kind, less willing to pass the time of day with them.

Those who see the world as safe, and who are motivated by exploring and trying new experiences, tend to support more liberal views.

Ortega held the process to be the driving force of history. The “reciprocal action between the masses and select minorities,” he wrote, “is the fundamental fact of every society and the agent of its evolution for good or evil.” Ortega’s masses we now call the public. By “select minorities” he meant the admirable few: elites who, at their best, lavi

that cooperation in repeated public goods games can be increased if players are allowed to punish noncooperators at their own expense.

In societies that are essentially social contracts (as all human societies are), freeloaders who take the benefits of the contract but avoid paying all the costs erode trust in other members of the community and quickly lead to the collapse of society.

Putnam and Campbell reject the New Atheist emphasis on belief and reach a conclusion straight out of Durkheim: “It is religious belongingness that matters for neighborliness, not religious believing.”

22 Monica Martinez-Bravo, Gerard Padro-i-Miquel, Nancy Qian, and Yang Yao, “Accountability in an Authoritarian Regime: The Impact of Local Electoral Reforms in Rural China,” Yale University (2010), manuscript.