This work is so valuable and it reminds me of a similar series of articles, "How the System Works" authored by Charles Mann in the magazine, The New Atlantis. Mann is equally concerned about the same thing - society wide forgetting about the complex systems of interdependence that we have built to supply clean water, abundant food, cheap energy, and public health. We need to re-imagine how and why we teach people of all ages the decades-long efforts to build and maintain these systems, including political interdependence, and what it will take from each of us to continue this effort.
We are losing our strategic visionaries in exchange for instant political gratification. The biggest victims are expertise and institutions. We do need to find a way to restore our faith in how we function in the long-term.
This work is so valuable and it reminds me of a similar series of articles, "How the System Works" authored by Charles Mann in the magazine, The New Atlantis. Mann is equally concerned about the same thing - society wide forgetting about the complex systems of interdependence that we have built to supply clean water, abundant food, cheap energy, and public health. We need to re-imagine how and why we teach people of all ages the decades-long efforts to build and maintain these systems, including political interdependence, and what it will take from each of us to continue this effort.
We are losing our strategic visionaries in exchange for instant political gratification. The biggest victims are expertise and institutions. We do need to find a way to restore our faith in how we function in the long-term.
Yes - the norms and institutions require constant tending and care (Yuval Levin’s book, A Time to Build).
Yuval Levin is truly under appreciated as an intellectual today. Jonah Goldberg got me into him and I enjoy his writings and work.