{"id":65576,"date":"2017-11-21T12:20:36","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T17:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=65576"},"modified":"2017-11-21T17:25:09","modified_gmt":"2017-11-21T22:25:09","slug":"nyt-op-ed-david-brooks-our-elites-still-dont-get-it-our-problems-arent-in-the-branches-but-at-the-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=65576","title":{"rendered":"(NYT Op-ed) David Brooks&#8211;Our Elites Still Don\u2019t Get It: Our problems aren\u2019t in the branches, but at the roots."},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"397\" data-total-count=\"2820\">Freedom without covenant becomes selfishness. And that\u2019s what we see at the top of society, in our politics and the financial crisis. Freedom without connection becomes alienation. And that\u2019s what we see at the bottom of society \u2014 frayed communities, broken families, opiate addiction. Freedom without a unifying national narrative becomes distrust, polarization and permanent political war.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"457\" data-total-count=\"3277\">People can endure a lot if they have a secure base, but if you take away covenantal attachments they become fragile. Moreover, if you rob people of their good covenantal attachments, they will grab bad ones. First, they will identify themselves according to race. They will become the racial essentialists you see on left and right: The only people who can really know me are in my race. Life is a zero-sum contest between my race and your race, so get out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"301\" data-total-count=\"3578\">Then they resort to tribalism. This is what Donald Trump provides. As\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/niskanencenter.org\/blog\/climate-change-denial-historical-consciousness-trumpism-lessons-carl-schmitt\/\">Mark S. Weiner writes<\/a>\u00a0on the Niskanen Center\u2019s blog, Trump is constantly making friend\/enemy distinctions, exploiting liberalism\u2019s thin conception of community and creating toxic communities based on in-group\/out-group rivalry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"176\" data-total-count=\"3754\">Trump offers people cultural solutions to their alienation problem. As history clearly demonstrates, people will prefer fascism to isolation, authoritarianism to moral anarchy.<\/p>\n<p id=\"story-continues-4\" class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"270\" data-total-count=\"4024\">If we are going to have a decent society we\u2019re going to have to save liberalism from itself. We\u2019re going to have to restore and re-enchant the covenantal relationships that are the foundation for the whole deal. The crucial battleground is cultural and prepolitical.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/11\/16\/opinion\/elites-taxes-republicans-congress.html\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Freedom without covenant becomes selfishness. And that\u2019s what we see at the top of society, in our politics and the financial crisis. Freedom without connection becomes alienation. And that\u2019s what we see at the bottom of society \u2014 frayed communities,<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=65576\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,209,111,168,98,151,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-watch","category-americau-s-a","category-education","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-marriage-family","category-politics-in-general","category-religion-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65576"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65579,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65576\/revisions\/65579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}