The aging of American society is almost always seen as a problem, but the elderly may be our only growing natural resource — provided we create new ways to mobilize their civic energies.
Books, Arts and Culture
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Unsolved Mysteries: The Tocqueville Files II
Bowling Alone” was published in January 1995. Seldom has a thesis moved so quickly from scholarly obscurity to conventional wisdom. By January 1996 the Washington Post was featuring a six-part series of front-page articles on the decline of trust, and Beltway pundits had learned the vocabulary of social capital. While the debate over the accuracy […]
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The Fleece Police
I t’s Wednesday night on the NBC Nightly News-time for yet another installment of “The Fleecing of America,” the weekly series on government waste. Tonight’s episode stars a job training program in Puerto Rico, designed to move seasonal farm workers off welfare and into better-paying, permanent work. “Nothing wrong with that, right?” Tom Brokaw asks. […]
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Unsolved Mysteries: The Tocqueville Files
If only folks would turn off the TV and start attending PTA meetings, America’s future could be as bright as its civically engaged past. This diagnosis is taking shape in foundation-sponsored gatherings and among highbrow columnists. Privileged men and women–who spend most of their waking hours in their offices, on jet airplanes, and in front […]
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Unsolved Mysteries: The Tocqueville Files
UNSOLVED MYSTERIESThe Tocqueville Files “What If Civic Life Didn’t Die?” by Michael Schudson“Unravelling From Above,” by Theda Skocpol“Couch-Potato Democracy?” by Richard M. Valelly Robert Putnam Responds
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The Ideologically Invested
W hen President Clinton announced his economic plan in 1993, Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley had no doubt about what would happen. Clinton’s proposals, he predicted in a column in February 1993, would “cripple” the economy. While the plan was debated, this absolute certainty about its effects pervaded the Journal‘s discussion on both its […]
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How We Lost the Peace Dividend
After every previous war, we sent troops home and cut defense spending. The Col War is over, but real spending still runs 85 percent of the Cold War average.
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State of the Debate: Indelible Colors
A book by two political theorists argues that new, cultural definitions of race can be as insidious as the old, biological ones.
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State of the Debate: Who’s Afraid of Michael Jordan?
There’s no denying that blacks dominate basketball and other professional sports. But have whites rationalized black physical prowess only by equating it with mental deficiency?
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State of the Debate: The Other American Dilemma
Anthony Lukas’s last book is a powerful tale of what used to be “class warfare” in America — and a lesson about why so many people have had a hard time telling that story.