{"id":107092,"date":"2016-09-18T06:28:01","date_gmt":"2016-09-18T14:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=107092"},"modified":"2016-09-18T06:30:29","modified_gmt":"2016-09-18T14:30:29","slug":"americas-diminishing-social-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=107092","title":{"rendered":"America’s Diminishing Social Capital"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Brooks gets it<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Sitting out the anthem takes place in the context of looming post-nationalism. When we sing the national anthem, we\u2019re not commenting on the state of America. We\u2019re fortifying our foundational creed. We\u2019re expressing gratitude for our ancestors and what they left us. We\u2019re expressing commitment to the nation\u2019s ideals, which we have not yet fulfilled.<\/p>\n

If we don\u2019t transmit that creed through shared displays of reverence we will have lost the idea system that has always motivated reform. We will lose the sense that we\u2019re all in this together. We\u2019ll lose the sense of shared loyalty to ideas bigger and more transcendent than our own short lives.<\/p>\n

If these common rituals are insulted, other people won\u2019t be motivated to right your injustices because they\u2019ll be less likely to feel that you are part of their story. People will become strangers to one another and will interact in cold instrumentalist terms.<\/p>\n

You will strengthen Donald Trump\u2019s ethnic nationalism, which erects barriers between Americans and which is the dark opposite of America\u2019s traditional universal nationalism.<\/p>\n

I hear you when you say you are unhappy with the way things are going in America. But the answer to what\u2019s wrong in America is America \u2014 the aspirations passed down generation after generation and sung in unison week by week.<\/p>\n

We have a crisis of solidarity. That makes it hard to solve every other problem we have. When you stand and sing the national anthem, you are building a little solidarity, and you\u2019re singing a radical song about a radical place.<\/p>\n

\n

thing I dont get about Democrats. they support a proposition nation racially-blind America, almost as an article of faith, yet<\/p>\n

— Ed West (@edwest) September 18, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n