And i am glad i didnt have to answer them and thank you to chris and kevin for doing that. We will reconvene in 15 minutes for a panel on civic virtue. Thank you for being here. I am a fellow here at the Stockdale Center and its a pleasure to be with peter to discuss virtue. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of numerous books and he is director of constitutional studies at the American Enterprise institute and the author of numerous books. We will start i think with peter. The thank you. It is great to be here with my panelists and thanks to ed and the Naval Academy for this opportunity. I thought it might be useful to do something unusual, for me at east to approach the panels topic of civil virtue and its decline and its reinvigoration from a somewhat autobiographical perspective. Long ago and far away when i went to college, the cutting edge topic is something we called engraved tones and the critique of liberalism. We have leading authors and books and we read a book called knowledge and politics and a kind of mad genius and i underline both words and we read the writings of Charles Taylor and we read the writings of Alastair Mcintyre and we were influenced by a book called after virtue and maybe some of you who studied political theory are familiar with this book. The core argument of the book is of great interest to those of us who are interested on the critique of liberalism where it meant the modern tradition of freedom. His core argument will be familiar to many of you especially those of you who follow debates about post liberalism. The argument 40 years ago was we have lost the ability to speak coherently about the virtues and the excellence of mind and character. We have even forgotten the contemporary men and women and we have forgotten that the virtues are central to the moral life. The culprit is liberalism and the modern tradition of freedom. According to mcintyre, Frederick Nietzsche exposed this modern tradition of freedom and he showed that it inevitably deteriorates into nihilism. But argued mcintyre somehow his criticisms didnt reach the thinking of premodern figures and most notably aristotle and that tradition. Therefore argued mcintyre our choice was stark. Frederick nietzsche and nihilism or this in the futures futures virtues. Most choose aristotle and in practice that meant this aristotle tradition which is the synthesis of aristotle and christianity. Again that outline of the history of political philosophy should sound familiar especially to those of you following contemporary debates and the views of the post liberals. Now. I want to assert and i can only be brief that mcintyres analysis was wrong and all major respects. I do say that as somebody who great the admirers Alastair Mcintyre whom i admire more than almost any other thinker but nonetheless i believe he was wrong about Frederick Nietzsche, aristotle and the modern liberal tradition. Here i can mostly only assert these claims and sketch what i think is a better view. I do hope that this will shed some light on our question, civic virtue in a liberal or rights protecting democracy. And what i say about mcintyre i think applies to the post liberal critique of liberalism. First he misrepresents the critique of philosophy. Nietzsche didnt show the specifically modern philosophy was an expression of will. And he did not believe himself to have shown that. Nietzsche believed he had accomplished something much more radical. He believed to have established that all great philosophy, plato and aristotle no less played more comfortably and was reducible to the moral intention of the philosophers themselves, and all rationalism beginning with plato down to the moment nietzsche was thinking in the middle of the 19th century, all of it culminated in nihilism. So contrary to mcintyre, nietzsches critique embraced classical and medieval philosophy. Second contrary to mcintyre, aristotelian Political Science doesnt dictate the repudiation of liberal democracy, a regime based on the premise that human beings are by nature free and equal. The aristotelian Political Science does not demand its replacement with a regime devoted to the promotion of virtue. Rather, aristotelian medical science sets forth an alternative way of understanding liberal democracy. An alternative, however, that takes the regime as it is based on the premise of natural freedom and equality devoted to protecting rights and focuses on the aristotelian Political Science, that is, focuses on the defining principles of liberal democracy. It looks for ways to preserve and improve liberal democracy. In the politics of aristotle, he describes best regime devoted to promoting virtue. He does not, however, to put it we count on its realization. More or less, he advises that if you are extremely unlikely, not just at this moment in the 21st century but in ancient greece as well, you are extremely unlikely to live in a regime devoted to the promotion of virtue. Aristotle adds you are extremely unlikely to find yourselves in a circumstance that allows you to build the best regime. The best we can reasonably hope for is an imperfect regime. Aristotle calls it quality. Its a regime in which some people, in the minority, are wealthy and the majority tends to be less wealthy. And they are balanced by a large middle class. Each class contributes distinctive virtues and vices to this mixed regime. In short, particularly if you live in a regime that recognizes the democratic freedom and equality, aristotelian Political Science recommends measures of accommodation, balance, and calibration to prevent your regime from deteriorating into something much worse. So much for nietzsche and aristotelian Political Science. Mcintyres third big error. He wrongly argues that liberalism, better to call it the modern tradition of freedom, repudiates or renders incoherent the moral virtues. So a few decades now inspired by mcintyre, i set out to write a book that more or less vindicated that thesis, that the liberal tradition repudiates or renders incoherent and account of moral virtue. Before i began writing it in earnest, i undertook to do Due Diligence so i resolved to reread some major figures in this modern tradition of freedom to make sure there were no stray mentions of virtue here and there. And that i could establish that the liberal tradition was not only repudiated the virtues, but it was intrinsically incapable of giving an account. I started with hobbs, who seemed to me the easiest case, maybe not a liberal but a proto liberal and he does talk about inalienable rights and does say governments job is to protect them. But he was known as the monster of mounds barry and he had a political theory based on a crude mechanistic understanding of nature and a hedonistic view of humanity. So of course he had no room for virtue. And then i began rereading leviathan. Right there in the introduction i thought maybe i had a misbegotten copy of it but right there in the introduction on the first page hobbs said all serious study of politics is based on the socratic maxim, know thyself. And that to engage in Political Science, one had to study ones own passions and compare those passions to the passions of others and reason from the passions. This didnt sound mechanic is mechanistic. It sound connected to why i understood to be a Political Science that appreciated the virtues and the qualities in the excellence of mind and character. So i was only slightly thrown off. And then i got to the end of chapter 15 of leviathan. It culminates through three crucial chapters in which hobbs discusses the state of nature and lays out 19 laws of nature that enable us to leave the state of nature and create political society. Its the 19 laws of nature. And at the end of chapter 15, he writes and says, the ways or means to peace are justice, gratitude, modesty, equity, mercy, and the rest of the laws of nature, which are good. That is to say moral virtues. And, yes, the science of virtue and vices moral philosophy. I set out to write a book that said this tradition knows nothing of the virtues following mcintyre and can make sense of them. Hobbs says at the end of chapter 15 that actually the laws of nature are not really laws and conclusions are theorems. More than that, they name qualities of mind and character. And with each additional thinker, i studied. I had a similar experience. I will only mention lock here. Muchmaligned taken as a kind of demonic figure by the post liberals, the turning point responsible for establishing a philosophy and obsessively focused on individual freedom but an individual freedom that really means radical emancipation from all external causes. Locke is really a postmodern. But there i am rereading john locke and i come to chapter 6 and in the middle of an account of the second treatise, a book is the origins, the extent and the aims of political power and a chapter on education in the family. And parents essential role in the preparing their children and daughters as well as funds for lives of freedom by disciplining them and teaching them the virtues. And i am then guided on a book called some thoughts concerning education. And in that book, john locke, typically presented once again as obsessed radically with freedom, provides a manual for parents on how to educate their children. What is at the heart of that kind of education . The moral virtues to enjoy freedom and maintain free institutions argues locke, children need to be raised and disciplined by their parents in a way do include a whole range of qualities of mind and character and he insisted the moral virtues were essential to a society based on freedom. And one could Say Something simpler about others in the modern tradition of freedom. To conclude, what about today . We certainly do suffer from a dearth of civic virtue and one could identified a multiplicity of causes and it could be modernity and the unraveling of family, the decline of community. But does liberal democracy itself undermined the virtues necessary to its survival as the post liberals are so found of fond of saying . Answer, yes, of course it does. But i add this important qualification. Liberal democracy undermines the virtue in which it depends by taking its principal, the principle of individual freedom, to an extreme. But the post liberals who are so fond of making this argument in the name of aristotle forget his teaching, which is also the teaching of plato. All regimes, not just liberal democracy, but all of them, undermine the virtues necessary to their survival by taking their leading principles to an extreme and this is a problem of all regimes. The proper response therefore isnt to denounce and overthrow liberal democracy especially given its great blessings with the visual freedom and equality under law, prosperity and toleration. Instead, the proper response is to revise reforms to counteract the diseases to which liberal democracies are prone. I intend the echo to the conclusion of federalist number 10. Today, what are the key virtues we should be concerned about . s it is a long topic. For starters, they depend on civility, toleration, sympathetic imagination. Prudence, moderation, courage. These are both civic virtues. The virtues connected to said decision chip and moral virtues connected to the excellence of human beings. How should liberal democracies cultivate the virtues they need . In liberal democracies, we dont rely primarily on government for the cultivation of virtues but dont make the mistake that, therefore, they are unimportant. We rely on civil society, especially the family. But the most important factor, i believe, most under our control today is education, the educational system. We need to revive a liberal education. That is an education for freedom in such an education would focus on, after literacy, reading, writing and arithmetic, the principles of american Constitutional Government and the history of america. It would focus on larger western civilizations, understanding the treasures of western civilization and preserving them. Students would also learn about other civilizations and the entire education from youth through Higher Education would ensure that students hear the other side of the argument. Because an education in which you hear the other side of the argument is one that promotes the virtues that we so desperately need. Happy to elaborate on these and other themes during the discussion. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you very much. I am going to pick up on some of the themes that peter brought out. Its a great honor to be here on a panel with him in here speaking to all of you on a crucial set of questions. When i sat down to think about what to say here, i look at the agenda and the name of the panel is just virtue. That is nice. But i needed more. I sent a note and asked what is the question we are answering here . And he wrote back to me and said the question is, how should liberal democracies cultivate the civic virtues they need . That is actually a very rich question, which i really like a lot. I will try to answer it by thinking about the question a little bit. It is a question that assumes to begin with several important premises that i think are correct. But they are worth stating explicitly. The first is a liberal democracy or a democratic republic requires certain particular virtues. I think that is true of any society. The virtues that every society requires are related to the kind of society that it is or that it wants to be. So that our society, which is a liberal democratic republic, requires certain republican and democratic virtues. And peter got into some of that and i think its a long and contested question, but maybe we can agree that as a liberal democracy, we do require some virtues like toleration, forbearance, patience, and humility. As a republic we require virtues like responsibility encourage and honesty and magnanimity and faith. Republican and liberal virtues are compatible up to a point but there is tension between them. I think those are the kind of virtues that we need to instill and cultivate to sustain our societys strengths. The second premise be on the fact that our Society Needs these kinds of virtues is that society cultivates or tends to produce certain kinds of virtues and i think that is plainly true. The way in which we live tends to shape the kind of people we are. Societies by their practices and habits and assumptions and forms and historical self understandings tend to shape particular sorts of people. So our Society Needs a certain kind of person and our society shapes that person. The question is how can those two be aligned . How can we cultivate the kind of people that we also need in order to sustain the strengths of our society . I think we have to see that this wont happen on its own by inertia, default. We have to do it explicitly and intentionally. Maybe that is especially true in a liberal democracy. I think there is no avoiding the fact that left to ourselves, we citizens of a democratic republic will often tend to ignore our obligations to one another and to a larger society. We remember our rights and duties. We remember what we are owed but not what we owe. We incline to an excessive individualism and forget the free and responsible individual is less a natural fact than a social achievement. That we have to work to sustain. I think that is true in any society. It will tend to become an excessive form of what it is fundamentally. And it will turn its virtues and vices. But in some ways because we are free, this is especially true of our kind of society. It is true we will tend to neglect the republican virtues, those essential to government by the people in which we all have to play a civic role and in which we all have to take joint responsibility. We tend to neglect the ways by which becomes possible for the citizens of a free society to understand themselves as engaged in some common effort on behalf of the common good. So to speak of our country in the first person plural as we the people as we who see certain truths to be self evident. The freedom and the polity and prosperity and sheer manic energy of a liberal society tends to make us forgetful of these virtues, even though these are all dependent on these virtues. Free societies dont coerce people to do the right thing. They can only really succeed if people generally choose to do the right thing. If what we want to do and what we ought to do or are they aligned. That requires serious attention to the formation of our desires and teaching us what you want. That kind of attention is more essential in a free society than that that isnt free. Especially in one that wants to govern itself, in a liberal democracy that is a republic. As James Madison puts it, republican government presupposes the existence of these kinds of virtues in a higher degree than any other form. And yet the dominant ethos of liberal democratic life can sometimes undermine that kind of attention to the formation of our desires and tell us whatever we want is good and it can turn our attention away from precisely the cultivation of virtues. I think theres not a way around that fact of liberal life. But that reality is not in itself an argument against liberal democracy. It cant deny the extraordinary moral achievement that is a society of free People Living together as fellow citizens despite their differences or the extraordinary balance of dynamism and prosperity and moral purpose and commitment to Human Dignity that our particular liberal democracy has achieved. The fact that the liberal ethos can undermine the preconditions of our own society isnt an argument against that society but rather an argument for working consciously and conscientiously to cultivate the ethos of our society. To push against some of the vicious tendencies of liberal democratic life and cultivate its more virtuous potentials. Can we do that . Of course we can do that. Look around you. We can do that and we do it all the time. It is too easy when we look at our country now to see the ways it is feeling the way our culture is corroding and our trust declining. It is true that all of those things are happening and they are not made up. It is essential to first see what our country is doing well so we can see how it may address realistically the many things it does poorly. Our country does a lot of this work of cultivation very well. It produces the kinds of people that attend the Naval Academy and those who in a vast variety of ways all over the country are working hard to form the next generation of americans and sustain our societys strengths. That happens in countless communities all the time in religious congregations, schools, and many pockets of sanity throughout Higher Education and a vast array of bottomup lyrical, economic, and cultural efforts to strengthen our society. That work is always threatened and in some respects it is threatened now more intensely than usual, but it does go on. To pretend it is no longer possible, i think, ultimately, it is to shirk the work of doing it, which is hard work. We do cultivate essential virtues. But the question began with an important word, how. How do we cultivate these virtues . How do we do it better . That question, i would argue, requires us to think about a subject that free and liberal societies which are the therefore, individualistic societies we tend to like to avoid and it requires us to think about institutions. When we think about our society, we imagine it as a vast open space filled with individuals making choices for themselves. Sometimes we see these individuals are having trouble connecting with each other. We work to address that by looking for ways to connect them and we talk about taking on loneliness and isolation through various sorts of metaphors of building bridges and tearing down walls. I think there is value in that kind of thinking but it mistakes the character of our social life because it ignores the structure and forms of common action that make it possible. If our society is a vast open space, its not just one filled with individuals but a space filled with forms and structures and one filled with institutions. And its a broad and vague term but for the sake of simplicity we can say that institutions are precisely the forms of our common life and the straight shapes and structures of what we do together. Some institutions are organizations and maybe its a hospital or business or church and they are technically legally formalized and some institutions are forms of a different sort and maybe they are shaped by laws or norms but not organizations. The family is the first and foremost institution of any society and we can talk about a profession like medicine or the rule of law and they are durable and have their shape over time and they tend to change slowly or gradually and its not an institution but what is distinct about an institution is it is a forum in the deepest sense, a structure, a shape and its not just up one chip people but a bunch of people ordered together to achieve a purpose and pursue a goal and advance an ideal and it gives each of them a role in relation to each other and in relation to the purpose they are trying to achieve together and it says you are a teacher and principal and each of you has different responsibilities and obligations and privileges. And because of that role and together you are pursuing the education of the rising generation and that is the purpose of the school which means institutions are, by nature, formative of us and they structure interactions with each other and they structure each of us and shape habits and expectations and her character and soul and they form us and in that way they also cultivate some distinct virtues in a said they are often the answer of how and when you shape and institution precisely because you are given a role, you arent just a person floating out in the world but a student at the school her doctor at the hospital or a member of the church or factory and it gives you a character or set of goals and boundaries and behaviors and there is such a thing in the world as a lawyer or dentist and you ask people what they do and they say i am an accountant and a marine and you think i have already guessed that. And its precisely because you have expectations about how institutions form and this is often where virtues are cultivated and it happens and it makes that cultivation possible and we are shaped to live in a certain way by watching others and acting ourselves in ways and the challenge of cultivating habits of a democratic republic is a challenge to institutions and our failures of formation and of community and educational institutions and religious institutions so the successful formations of citizens require healthy institutions that are geared toward habituating us to those virtues. And because those cut against the ethos of liberal democracy itself, some of the most important institutions have to cut against that as well. Many institutions essential to liberal democracy are not themselves liberal and democratic in the family isnt a democracy and neither is the Naval Academy. The habits they give us are those of a free society. But they arent always the habits that a free society will cultivate if left to itself. Although they are culture shaping, they are countercultural and shape the cultural things with intention itself and that is the secret sauce of american life. Every kind of society tends to go to excess and turn its virtues and devices and every society requires a moderation of those vices which a lot of our institutions do for us and the people inside those institutions, especially those with the most authority and power have to think consciously about the formative part they play and that these institutions play so what kind of habits do they create or the people shaped by institutions they run . Part of what that means is leaders have to work to sustain Peoples Trust in the institutions they are responsible for by upholding their end of the bargain and doing their core job for positions of leadership and authority but in some ways for all of us because we have important parts to play and other institutions and that has to start asking the great unasked question, given my role here, how should i behave . That is what somebody who takes an institution they are involved with seriously in a moment of decision and a lot of the trouble facing institutions now can be described as a very widespread failure to ask that kind of question. And given my role how i behave as a member of congress or soldier or student or teacher, what should i do . It is a question that can make us better because in a moment of decision it forces us about what is expected of us and what is required of us and to be responsible and what do i want and i think we can all think of situations where this makes a difference. And if i am driving on a highway and somebody cuts us off and i say what do i think of them but i remember the kids are in the backseat i dont do it. And that is in a simple sense how the institutions shape us and force us to think about what role we have that requires us to behave in some certain way. And a lot of people we respect now think about that question before they make judgments. And a lot of people who drive us crazy who are part of the problem at this moment seem to fail to ask that question when they very obviously should. And the appeal is powerful and there is a strong temptation for many of our institutions to abandon this core work and treat the institution as a kind of platform for performance and making a political statement or for sending a cultural message or getting more followers on social media rather than playing a particular role assigned to us in the institutions that matter. That temptation is deadly to trust in institutional integrity. It is also therefore deadly to the work of cultivating the virtues that are most crucial to her democratic republic. You do feel the pressure here and the pressure to be just another place where the prejudices of the elite culture are mindlessly reaffirmed over and over again rather than a place of a distinct role and purpose and character that is willing to be countercultural in order to secure the conditions for a societys future. It is an irony of life in a free society but a source of great strength that in a free society many of the crucial institutions are as i have said countercultural and pushing against the tide of fashion and convention and those that are in active tension with the default tendencies of our society to remain free and liberal and republican our society has to be sure sustains the space for these institutions and even may be especially when they are not always even liberal institutions themselves with the religion and family and searching for an education and military virtues and traditional ideas and guarding our capacity to cultivate these virtues that requires guarding the institutions that cultivate them and a space in which they can work and it means insisting on the ability of parents to make choices about how their children are raised and insisting on a genuine freedom of religious communities or teaching and learning those ideas that pose challenges to contemporary mores and consumptions and here i will close. This is something of a need to facilitate formations and we often think, for example of the key rights protected by the First Amendment as purely individual to do what you want, but if you look at those, there are rights to participate informative institutions, those that teach us what to want and the freedom of assembly cant be pressed this individually but neither can the freedom of the press or speech or petition or religious freedom that comes first in the First Amendment and these are all rights that here are in individuals but they participate in the lives of institutions and communities informative ways and our society can cultivate the virtues it requires by working to keep its core institutions from the family up, strong and free and protected. We as individuals can cultivate those virtues in ourselves and in others by selfconsciously embracing our roles in these institutions and we often fail on both of these crucial fronts at the same time and in doing better it requires us to understand how virtues are cultivated and why they matter and what the freedom of a free society is ultimately for and about. These are just the questions we are taking up in these two days and thank you very much for involving me in these. We do have some short time for questions of people want to cue them up at the microphones. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us. You spoke of Frederick Nietzsche and nihilism and when you refer to ideas and solutions of his, what is your take on the pursuit of this and its relevance to individual liberty in a liberal democracy given its radical departure from Traditional Community values as symbolized by the metamorphosis . It is my fault, but i havent been asked a question like that in lord knows how long. I am delighted to be asked that question about beginning that. That speech, that opening speech is an effort for him to describe the metamorphosis of the superman in three stages in the first stage as camel you submit to discipline and what nietzsche had in mind and beyond good and evil and he speaks about the tyranny of capricious laws being the source of all moral virtue. The second stage is a lien shaking off the values and the values of tradition. The third stage, it is actually the character that zero thirst or gives that to and a child who invents sacred games and a radical form of creation and from my point of view his sketch of the three metamorphosis of the spirit shows in the sense how utopian and unrealistic Frederick Nietzsche is ultimately to be radically free of inherited values and traditions, institutions is to be first childlike and also to yourself become responsible for creating holy rights and ceremonies. And from my point of view, the achievement of zarathushtra is to demonstrate that this original dream of being free of traditions and inherited values cant be achieved and leads to nowhere and therefore, it gives us a motive for reconsidering what Frederick Nietzsche and zarathushtra sought to refute he ate. Repudiate. I love everything about that exchange so much. Thank you to all you gentlemen for your speeches. My question was specifically for doctor levin. On institutions you did mention the family and Naval Academy that are countercultural but what are some of the best and worst institutions for shaping these virtues that a liberal society often lacks and besides embracing our roles of where we are and growing our planet what can be done to improve these institutions especially when you mention they so slowly change over time . Thank you for that question. I think the challenge for us is a lot of key institutions necessary for that kind of formation are in terrible shape now and they dont recognize their own purpose or part in that very important work of civic formation and of being soul forming. The question is not exactly which institutions to look to him we have to look to family and school and church and to the university or look to the political system as well but each of those cases in one way or another, there is work to be done and i think it is always true but i find myself a lot of them are confused about their role and really about the character of our society and even the character itself in ways that are connected and require concerted work to reacquaint ourselves with the foundations of civic virtue and of a liberal society. Some of it should be rather countercultural work and it is critical and it longs in places like universities where it isnt happening enough. It belongs in a sense in the larger cultures efforts to understand itself in combat its worst devices. Part of the reason to surface this in a free society when things go well, we dont need to think about institutions and we dont like to. We like to imagine we do what we want. Before we do what we want in a way that doesnt destroy us all, we have to be taught what to want and the institution that teach us what to want are in trouble now. And i think that requires us to dig to the bottom of what a lot of them are for and think very hard about what society requires and what it is good at and what it is not and where it needs help and us. That means this is a moment that requires some foundational fundamental work, conversations like this one. Thank you. This question is for doctor 11 the doctor. I think something we havent discussed so far is the role of the media and what that place and i feel a lot of the institutions you referenced are shaped by the media we have and instead of cronkite telling us the way it is we have institutions driven by shareholders and engagement and clicks which drives congressional leaders not to provide apt discussion in congress but often for showmanship. How do you feel the media plays a role in shaping the people in the way that they often do. In part i am not nostalgic for Walter Cronkite telling us how it is that that isnt very often how it works. I do think it is important to recognize that control of the flow of information shouldnt be too tightly constricted and there are a lot of ways and nostalgia for which is essentially the theme of our politics in the last 25 years. Actually we had a lot of problems. There are ways in which some of their vices were the opposite of ours so we missed that. They had too much constitution confidence in these and they were to constricted and solidified a society where we are too fragmented and degenerative and there are things we can learn from the ways in which the society did things to be coming out of two world wars and a depression, america in the middle of the 20th century was cohesive and consolidated. We are not that. I think we have to think about that, where we are now to a more functional version of a free society in a way that is relatively free in the 20th century and as much as that can teach us. I think instead we have to think about those foundational questions and what is required for us from where we are now to be a free society. The media has a role and the collapse of trust we witnessed began earliest with our collapse of trust in media and some is driven by economic motives as you suggest in the basic economic model of journalism is different now than it was in that heyday. But i think the media is responsible for the character of our social life in a way that forces us to think about more than media and exemplifying a kind of institutional dysfunction that is evident in many institutions speak has as in congress and universities and corporations you find people should be playing a part within an institution but instead standing on it and performing a personal following and brand and making it systematically more impossible to trust them. We have to think about that is a larger pattern and it really is a larger pattern of the 21st century. I do agree with the warning about nostalgia, which was once defined as a longing for a time that never was, but still i think we should keep in mind a few differences between the era of Walter Cronkite and our era or even in the 60s when you strolled through the newsroom, most you would find werent graduates of elite universities. And today you stroll through you will discover that most of these who are reporting on the news to say nothing of those opining are the products of elite education and much more so than the supposed time of unity and the Mainstream Media, members were educated in the same schools received the same set of values and especially in these days i would say even indoctrinated into a common set of ideas. At the same time because of the digital era, we all now can personally tailor our news feeds and create cocoons around ourselves. Its the Mainstream Media and they become more unified and it is easier and easier for each of us, to in case ourselves in our own almost private conversations so that it has become harder and we havent read the same articles or essays every day and it becomes harder for us to engage in a common conversation across party lines and identity lines. I emphasize those as challenges we face. This point about consolidation is important and the United States is to stand out for having a diversity of elites and it was different from europe in this respect and the people who ran big corporations were very different from those who ran major city newspapers or the people who ran the union or those who ran a Government Agency and a Hollywood Studio or the chair of the English Department at brown. Those people are similar to each other now and they are interchangeable. And one of those things it means is the d formations of universities matter much more than they used to. And the universities form elites