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Tag Archives: The Fractured Republic
Nostalgia as Arson
A couple of months ago I spent a few weeks “reflecting” my way through Yuval Levin’s The Fractured Republic, which suggested that both the political right and the political left were “stuck in the past” when trying to articulate Our … Continue reading
On Liberty
Over the course of The Fractured Republic, Yuval Levin traces the recent history of both our country and the people who constitute it. While government and big business and culture are huge movers in the story, the daily practitioners of … Continue reading
The Difference between Community and Identity
One of the things that has been most beneficial for me from reading Yuval Levin’s The Fractured Republic is that it has given me better language to describe the situation we find ourselves in. Case in point: Levin’s discussion of … Continue reading
Some Way to Recovery
Yuval Levin spends the first chunk of The Fractured Republic noting trends and making connections in American life over the 20th and 21st centuries. In the last chunk of the book, Levin attempts to articulate some way forward from our … Continue reading
A Kind of Comfortably Numb
Tomorrowland was one of the more maligned and ignored “blockbusters” from the summer of 2015, which is ironic when considering the movie’s attempt at being a “canary in the coal mine concerning contemporary society. The idea behind telling stories about … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Movies, Teaching, The Long Story
Tagged The Fractured Republic, Tomorrowland
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The Ethic of the Age
It’s been interesting for me to bear witness to even the small changes in thinking that have happened with high school students over the last thirteen years. Every spring, I get to spend a quarter with seniors talking about issues … Continue reading
Transformation Documentation
In many ways, Yuval Levin’s The Fractured Republic is a documentation of the broad changes in American culture over the last century. He does that on a large scale (and in large chunks) with his “ages” of conformity, frenzy, and … Continue reading
Our Sclerotic Systems
Even though Yuval Levin’s The Fractured Republic is all about understanding modern-day America, it can also easily read as a parable for other institutions and organizations. Everything is connected, of course. So Levin’s description of our national systems and programs … Continue reading
Renorming (and who benefits)
I believe it was marketing guru Seth Godin who introduced me to the idea that history may not repeat, but it definitely rhymes. That’s the sense you get when reading Yuval Levin’s The Fractured Republic. Sometimes patterns and trends really … Continue reading
You Are Here (When Is That?)
The first half of Yuval Levin’s The Fractured Republic is an attempt to explain the contemporary American landscape by revisiting the major trends of the twentieth century. It’s a tall order that, from my perspective, he handles well and without … Continue reading
Space Enough, and Time 