Attention Economy


Saturday, November 20, 2021

Polarization and Political Instability

How the ‘Culture War’ Could Break Democracy
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/20/culture-war-politics-2021-democracy-analysis-489900
“Democracy, in my view, is an agreement that we will not kill each other over our differences, but instead we’ll talk through those differences. And part of what’s troubling is that I’m beginning to see signs of the justification for violence,” says Hunter, noting the insurrection on January 6, when a mob of extremist supporters of Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. “Culture wars always precede shooting wars. They don’t necessarily lead to a shooting war, but you never have a shooting war without a culture war prior to it, because culture provides the justifications for violence.”
 
Daniel Patrick Moynihan Was Often Right. Joe Klein on Why It Still Matters.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/15/books/review/daniel-patrick-moynihan-was-often-right-joe-klein-on-why-it-still-matters.html
“The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society,” Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York said during a lecture at Harvard in 1986. “The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”