![]() ![]() But a careful reader will note that Twilight of Authority appeared in 1975, which is close to what Levin will later suggest was a high point for trust in American institutions. ![]() Levin wishes to borrow Nisbet’s rhetoric to describe our current predicament. 2 Nisbet speaks darkly of “twilight ages… Processes of decline and erosion… a vacuum obtains in the moral order… Retreat from the major to the minor, from the noble to the trivial, the communal to the personal, and from the objective to the subjective… degradation of values and of corruption of culture… estrangement from community.” In answering the first question, Levin begins on page 2 with a long quotation from Robert Nisbet’s Twilight of Authority. Are contemporary problems unusual? Can these problems be traced to a decline of institutions? For that matter, what is the definition of an institution? Levin pleads for us to go beyond complaining and instead to participate in the process of building and shoring up our institutions.Ī number of questions arise at the outset of the book. In order for society to function, its institutions must work. ![]() ![]() It is not enough just to come up with reasons for criticizing or tearing down institutions. In his latest book, Yuval Levin argues that our institutions need to serve us better but he argues even more strongly that we need to better serve our institutions. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |