Ethic of responsibility. They end up shielding and empowering bad behavior. That kind of gross abuse of power obviously undermines public trust and institution. It is not new. There are plenty of examples of it in our time. It doesnt quite explain the loss of confidence in institutions in our own day. Another related just fails to propose an effort. And doesnt see that kind of formation as its purpose. When the people and institution no longer see it as a mold of their character and behavior but just as a platform for themselves to perform on. And institution like that seems not to be worthy of our trust not because its failed to earn it but because it doesnt seek to seek see it to desire it. Somebody like that. Has seen that. When they dont think of their institutions. They are just stages for political outrage. When journalists has the activist on one side or the other. When they become a political they are in the process of going through their kind of came confirmation. The few exceptions again most notably the military. The National Institutions seem to prove that role. They tend to be the few institutions in which we arent losing faith. Many of the truly novel institutions especially that virtual institutions of social media are shaped as platforms and not as molds. It would be strange to trust a platform and we generally dont. That change of attitude has declined in the expectations that the should be formative and the in the people in them is at the heart of their faith. In the broader social crisis. They are stages to perform on more than his means to shape our character. We find people who ought to think of themselves like insid ers shaped by institution they are in instead of function ing as outsiders instead of building personal brand. This is obviously in politics. Any doubt that donald trump sees the presidency as a stage for performative outrage rather than executive acting through it. What exactly is he doing when he tweets displeasure of the department of justice, for example, the department of Justice Works for him f he had a sense, he would direct executive branch rather than complain about it. A president normally would, sense of his extraordinary is yet another stage for the Reality Television show that his life has been for so long. Any question at the same time that many members of congress of both parties now run for office less to be involved in legislative work and more to have a prom prominent platform and become more visible to talk radio, use their elected office mostly as platform to complain about the very institution that they work so hard to enter. They sigh that as what their voters want. They are always performing to core partisan audience. Two Major Political parties really anything other than two platforms for performance. Do have a platform other than displays narsism. Think of professional journalism , insistence on inform ative integrity, helps us on the sure that what it provides is reliable. , today journalists step outside and address public directly on social media and cable news Building Platform rather than participating in institution, a lot of professional reporters de professionallizing themselves. Should consider whether trumps behavior relative to what the presidency is similar to the behavior of a lot of leading political journalists, both are selfendull gains everyone you can see the academy rather than purposing University Rather form some portion of rising generation through teaching and learning, we find a lot of people using institution as platform for virtue signaling or political cultural theatrics, institutions that exist to form and transform souls are being used instead for political theater, cashe use less than let them express themselves, we see pattern throughout American Life amounts in practice to the great unasked question of our time, given my role here, how should i behave . Thats what someone takes an institution seriously would ask and a lot of trouble that face core institutions could be de scribed as widespread failure to ask that question, given my role howie should i behave, as president , member of president , paster or worker or neighbor, what should i do here. I would bet that the people that you most respect ask that kind of question before they make important judgments and i would bet that the people who drive you crazy, a really part of the problem, america, seems to constantly fail to ask that sort of question when they should so that we always find ourselves thinking, how could that person have done that given responsibilities, thats one way to understand transformation of institutions that has so much to do with broad every set of problems that we are dealing with, the transformation left a lot of americans with a sense that institutions cant be trust ed, arent in the business of earning trust and that left us short of formation, belonging , legitimacy, social cohesion. The problem doesnt simply ex plain the social crisis that we are living through, of course , one important factor behind the crisis that we are particularly likely to miss or ignore because we arent good at seeing institutions, grasping what they are for, we see through them in normal times like the air, we only notice it when something is wrong and something is wrong now. Join us for yuval levine on prip fifth april 5th noon eastern. In the meantime watch appearance s on book tv oferg. Here is whats coming up. Starting in march like from tucson festival of books, after that look for us at the new orleans book festival and later in the month virginia festival of the book followed by National Writers conference. For more information about upcoming book festivals, click the book fairs tab on website, booktv. Org. [inaudible conversations] youre looking live at trinity united baptist book festival. We will be back with more author books in just a few minutes. [inaudible conversations] in the meantime we wanted to show you of a program that you will see tomorrow, thoughts on end of life care. What is your idea of a good death . Its a question that our director joe really wanted to ask each and every one of the more than 40 people we interview ed around the country. Be they patients or be