A deeply thoughtful article on the dangers of disrespect for our hard-won, bled-for democratic institutions.
In their 1991 groundbreaking work The Good Society, authors and researchers led by Robert Bellah concluded that without institutions modern society might as well padlock the door and wait for the end. Regardless of how diligent, generous or capable an individual may be, without the ability to strengthen and enhance our institutions all historic societal gains will be lost and people will become adrift from one another.
The writers made a case for our institutions being the “patterned way we live together,” and concluded with what should have been obvious to all of us: “We live through institutions.” Granted those things that have held us together in the past – places of worship, governments, media organizations, educational institutions, and even democracy itself – can, like us, lose their way and contribute to an overall dulling of the senses. Yet since life without such essentials is impossible, our only real alternative…
View original post 758 more words
mightyturk 