Americans have always accepted a degree of inequality, inequality of outcomes. What seems to have changed in recent years, or at least in people’s perception of it, is…that there seems to be growing inequality of starting place.
The Nexus Institute (Page 1 of 3)
Political Culture, Donald Trump and Education
presented by Anne Applebaum, Derek Shearer, Jeb Bush, Roger Berkowitz, Sean Wilentz
Donald Trump is not an American phenomenon, solely an American phenomenon. We see Trumps emerging all across the West, all across Europe—Western Europe and Eastern Europe. And they are repeating themselves in very similar ways.
There’s always been this strain, particularly in American politics, a skepticism about politicians. We’re in one of these periods where there is such skepticism, but it runs deeper.
I have known Hillary for almost thirty years. And I hope that when this conference takes place, she’s been elected president. We share common values, political values. But also I think that these are deeply rooted in our own personal experiences. And these values we’ve defended against all sorts of people who have used whatever means that they could, many of them underhanded, in order to try and destroy reputations, attack people personally, to engage in what we’ve called the politics of personal destruction, but for political advantage and gain.
Is the USA the world’s last best hope?
presented by Sidney Blumenthal
Lincoln spoke of the United States as the last best hope on earth because the United States was the last, and only, and first, successful Democratic Republic in the world.
The Divided States of America
presented by Jeb Bush, Randall Kennedy, Rob Riemen, Roger Berkowitz, Sean Wilentz
I think there’s a great deal of naiveté about how politics actually works. And this is where either wing—the Trump wing or the Sanders wing—don’t understand how politics actually works in Washington.
Liberalism in the Anthropocene
presented by Michael Ignatieff
This emerging narrative of catastrophe is putting enormous pressure on all our political beliefs. Now there’s still some conservative parties, some US Republicans for example, who deny the basic facts, but we can be pretty sure I think that any politics that denies the facts doesn’t have much of a future.
How Should We Do Politics?
presented by Celeste Marcus, Flavia Kleiner, Intissar Kherigi, Joan Magrané Figuera, Rob Riemen, Wojtek Wieczorek
I think that politics has always been susceptible to conversion so that it’s not actually about living people it’s about signaling membership within a particular community.
What is the Sickness of Our Times?
presented by Leon Wieseltier, Nadine Labaki, Pamela Paul, Sari Nusseibeh
There are these two basic fundamental fears, these ur-fears that are rippling through our societies. The first is the fear of complexity, and the second is the fear of change.
What is the Value of Culture?
presented by Edoardo Albinati, Leon Wieseltier, Nadine Labaki, Pamela Paul, Rob Riemen
In America now, you can defend the humanities but only on economic grounds. So a theater improves a neighborhood. Or many people who study English become McKinsey consultants. But the fact is that you do it for itself, intrinsically, and you do it for the cultivation of the person and the cultivation of the citizen. Which should be reward enough.