The pillar and please speak clearly into the microphone as we are recording it today and cspan, booktv is here as well. Following q a we will have assigning here at this table. If you havent already purchased your books we have plenty at the front of the store at the registers. Tonight am very excited to welcome yuval levin to politics pros celebrating his newest book a time to build. From family and community to congress and the campus how recommitting to our institutions can revive the american dream. As the nation faces increasing divisiveness fueled by artisan politics culture wars and populace on both sides levine argues that rather than trying to tear down existing institutional frameworks we should be looking to them as sources of strength and support. Through a time to build he shows her Current Crisis isnt completely due to the presence of an oppressive force but to the absence of uniting forces and here to commit ourselves to renewing the vitality of institutions ranging from family and schools to churches and the military. To renew our ties to each other. He is the founder Founding Editor of National Affairs director of social culture ab American Enterprise institute. Contributing editor of National Review cofounder and Senior Editor of the new atlantis and his offered the fractured republic in the great debate. His essays and articles have appeared in numerous publications including the new york times, the washington post, the wall street journal among many others. Please join me in welcoming to politics and prose, yuval levin. [applause] thank you very much. Thank you i appreciate the welcome. I appreciate you being here on a friday night. Im excited to chat a little bit about this book and what it might say to a moment that takes a little work to understand. This is a book about some of whats gone wrong in our country in recent years and what we can do about it. Something has gone wrong i think is reasonably clear but exactly what it is actually isnt as clear as we sometimes think or imagine or pretend. We americans are in a sense living through social crisis. We can see that in everything from vicious partisan polarization to rapid cultural resentments and upsurge of isolation, alienation, despair that has sent suicide rates climbing and driven epidemic of opioid use in recent years these are deep dysfunctions and seemingly different parts of our society. They seem to have common roots and yet its not easy to say what exactly those roots are. Part of the crisis one of the symptoms is that we cant quite seem to get a handle on what that is. Traditional economic concerns dont really cut it as explanations. We certainly weve actually been living through one of the longest economic expansions moderate errors its not that some americans arent suffering economically but the problems we have on that front dont really add up to the enormous crisis we are going to. Other familiar kinds of measures of wellbeing dont offer obvious explanations either. Americans are as healthy and safe as was ever been. He might say what we complaining about . Some people argue that there actually just isnt anything to complain about or that the frustration and anxiety that seems to overwhelm us now are rooted in some kind of imaginary grievances driven by her politics. That they themselves might be the problem. Stephen pickard of harvard emma for example, takes these kinds of complaints to be what he described as irritable gestures of selfindulgence and gratitude. In a recent book he looks over mountains of data on wealth and health and safety and choice and he concludes the popular complaints on all side of our politics are just detached from reality. He said they are dangerous too. Indiscriminate pessimism can lead to fatalism, wondering why we should throw time and money at a hopeless cause and can lead to radicalism cause to smash the machine or drain the swamp or empower charismatic tyrants. Surely although these kinds of responses are understandable in part, public frustration is not just some kind of selfdelusion, especially frustration that runs this deep thats revealed itself in such a broad range of symptoms. Pinkerton happy data are not wrong exactly and neither are the encouraging Economic Indicators but if these dont explain raining sentiments of our time we should ask ourselves what kind of indicators might be ignoring. Our usual measures of wealth and health and personal freedom dont explain the problem because those familiar indicators as important as they are to understanding our society are largely material an individual. They assess our wellbeing on our own but none of us can really experience wellbeing on our own. Its exactly in the joints of society at the junctures of individual that the trouble really shows itself. One way to put that point is that many of our struggles seem rooted in relational problems. Loneliness and isolation, mistrust, suspicion, alienation, polarization, these are the kinds of problems we have now and they are failures of social reality. They fall into a blind spot for our very individualist culture. How do we explain the crisis of connectedness like this . Some people argue the trouble is fundamentally philosophical, metaphysical, that liberalism is failed because it fails to offer us sufficient vocabulary or architecture for solidarity. Other people say there are traditional measures of growth and prosperity might look fine our problem is still economic in a deeper sense, is socioeconomic. They say contemporary capitalism creates levels of inequality that make it impossible for people to feel like equal parts of a larger whole or to believe in legitimacy of our Political Economic order. Other people suggest that external pressures like trade or immigration or internal pressures like racism or identity politics have lost us incapable of hanging together. There is some truth to all these things, surely, they all get something important right because they treat the human person as embedded in a larger hole whether metaphysical or moral or social economic and they see that whats wrong now has to do with the way in which we live out that embeddedness. I think they are still missing something crucial. When we think about our problems in these ways, we tend to imagine our society as a vast open space thats full of people having trouble linking hands. We talk about breaking down walls are building bridges or leveling the playing field, casting some kind of unifying narrative but there is a missing step between joining together and recovering the longing and trust and legitimacy. What we are missing although we too rarely put it this way is a structure, a shape for our social life the way to give purpose and concrete meaning and identity to the things we do together. If American Life is a big open space its not a space filled with individuals its a space filled with these structures of social life. Its a space filled with institution. We were too often failing to foster legitimacy and trust more than a failure of connection we confront failure of institutions. Institutions do a lot more than connect us and understanding our social crisis in terms of what they are and what they do and help us to see the crisis in a new light. Thats the understanding really that this book tries to advance. Whats an institution . It wont surprise you to learn that there are a lot of different academic definitions of the term. The book thing through a number of these but for our purposes let us suggest a general definition that draws together a lot of the Academic Work but looks toward the problems we confront in our society. I institutions i mean the durable forms of our common life the ships, the structures of what we do together. Some institutions over the organizations they have Something Like a corporate Form University or hospital or school or business civic association, these are all institutions they are technically legally formalized. Some institutions are durable forms of different kind maybe shaped by laws or norms will but without proper structure of the family for example is an institution. In some ways the first and foremost institution of every society. You talk about the institution of marriage or particular tradition the profession as an institution the rule of law itself is an institution. That there durable is essential an institution keeps its general shape over time so it shapes the realm of life in which it might be said to operate. It changes only very gradually and incrementally flash mobs dont count with institutions. Most important whats distinct about institution is its a form. In the deepest sense. A form is a structure, contour is the shape of the whole, the organization that speaks of its purpose and its logic, its function commits meaning, a social forum, an institution is not just a bunch of people. Its a bunch of people order together to achieve a purpose to pursue a goal to advance an ideal and that means that institutions are also by their nature, formative. They structure our interactions and as a result, they structure us. They shape our habits, our expectations, ultimately they shape our characters, these shape our souls. They help to form us and that formative role actually has a lot to do with how institutions relate to the social crisis we are living through now stop let me say a word about that. When we think about the role of institutions in American Life now, we might tend to think first in terms of her loss of trust or confidence in institutions. Take talk about that a lot is a trend we hear a lot about. Measures very easy to find in paint a very grim picture. Gallup has kept track of americans confidence in institutions for decades. In most cases started doing it in the early 1970s and continues to do it on a regular basis and the trend in those figures is unmistakable. From big business and banks and professions to the branches of federal government the news media, the academy, its found confidence in our institutions has been plummeting consistently. 60 of americans profess confidence in the Public Schools in the early 70s. About a third did last year. In 1975 a year after Richard Nixon dude resigned in disgrace 52 percent of americans expects confidence in the presidency. Last year 32 percent did. Gallup even found amazingly that 42 percent of the public had confidence in congress in the 1970s. Last year that figure was 12 percent and even that seems really high you have to wonder who are these people who say they have confidence in congress. The pattern holds for just about all the institutions that gallup asked about. The military is the only major exception and we think about that in the second. The overall trend is really unmistakable. The American Public is gone from extraordinary levels of confidence are major institutions to really striking levels of mistrust. What we actually mean when we say we dont trust institutions . I think the answer has a lot to do with what institutions actually are and do. It takes us back to the question of how they form us. Every Significant Institution carries out important task in society. Educating children or enforcing the law or serving the poor providing service making some products, meeting a need we have. It does that by establishing a structure and process a form for combining peoples efforts toward accomplishing that task. In the process, the institution also forms those people to carry out that task effectively and responsibly and reliably stop it shapes the people within it to be trustworthy. Thats what it means to trust in institution. We trust in institution when it seems to have been ethic that makes the people within it more trustworthy. We might trust a Political Institution when it takes seriously some kind of obligation to the Public Interest and forms the people in it to do the same. We trust the military because it values courage and honor and duty and carrying out the defense of the country and it clearly shapes people who do that too. We trust the business because it promises quality and integrity and meeting some need we have an seems to reward people when they deliver those. We trust a school because it builds a culture that makes its people devoted to learning and teaching and keeping kids happy and safe. We trust the journalistic institution, for example, because it has high standards of honesty and accuracy in reporting the news and that makes its people reliable. We lose faith in institution when we no longer believe it plays that kind of ethical reform in a row. There are plenty of his examples in our time but theres plenty of examples and in every time. It doesnt quite explain the distinctive loss of confidence in institutions in our own day. Another related but Different Institution can lose our trust doesnt even seem to see that kind of formation as its purpose. When the people in the institution no longer see it as a mold of their character and behavior but just as a platform for themselves to perform on to raise their profiles to be seen in societies in institution like that seems not to be worthy of our trust not because it does mean it seemed to seek it or desire it Something Like that has been happening and a lot of our american institutions. We dont become institutions as formative but performative when the presidency and congress are just stages for performative political outrage when University Becomes a venue for virtue singling on one side or another when journalism is indistinguishable from activism on one side or the other when the Church Becomes a political stage, they become a lot harder to trust because they are really asking for our trust or just asking for attention. In our time a lot of the most significant social and political and cultural and intellectual institutions in our country are in the process of going through this kind of transformation for multiplatform. The few exceptions, most notably the military the most unabashedly formative of our National Institution seem to prove that rule because theyre one of the few institutions we are losing faith. Many of the many truck novel institutions of the 21st century especially Virtual Institution of social media are inherently shaped has platforms. It would be strange to trust a platform and we generally dont. That change of attitude the declining expectation the institution should be formative of the people in them is at the heart of our loss of faith in institutions. Its intern at the heart of our broader social crisis because institutions understand is platforms rather than molds stages to perform on more than as means to form and shape our character are less able to offer the subjects of loyalty, source of legitimacy, waives the building usual trust. Examples of this kind of transformation for multiplatform are everywhere around us want to start looking for them. In many cases our institutions are being made into platforms not just for any performance but for a kind of performative virtue and performative outrage in that vast polarized culture war that so much of our society is living through. In one institution after another we find people who ought to think of themselves as insiders shaped by distinct purpose and integrity of the institution they are in instead functioning as outsiders displaying themselves building their own personal brand. This is obvious in politics because if theres any doubt the donald trump sees the presidency as a stage for performative outrage and himself as a performer acting on it rather than an executive acting in and through it. What exactly is he doing when he tweets his displeasure with something the department of justice has done . The department of Justice Works for him. If he had a sense of his job is shaped by an institutional contours he would direct the executive branch rather than complain about it. Maybe its a good thing he doesnt know he could do that but he could. The president normally would. The sense of his job is yet another stage for the Reality Television show that his life has been for so long. Is there any question at the same time that many members of congress of both parties now run for office last to be involved in legislative work and more to have a prominent platform in the culture wars to become more visible and cable news or talk radio to build a bigger social media following to use their elected office mostly as a platform to complain about the very institution they work so hard to enter. They see that as what their borders want so they are always performing for the core purpose and audience. Our two Major Political parties right now anything other than two platforms for performance they have a function other than displaying and elevating narcissists . Do we even remember what the goals of the Political Parties was to be at this point . We look beyond politics too, think about the professional a aprofession of journalism. It institutional strength is insistence on a formative integrity on a process of editing and verification that helps us to be sure that what it provides is reliable but today a lot of journalists constantly step outside of those institutional constraints and address the public directly on social media or cable news building their own personal brands on a platform rather than participating in the work of institutions. If you look on twitter right now you will find a lot of professional reporters effectively d professionalizing themselves. Journalists who are inclined to complain about how donald trump is behaved in office should consider whether trumps behavior relative to what the presidency is might be unnervingly similar to the behavior of a lot of leading political journalists relative to what journalism is. Both are playing out a kind of selfindulgent celebrity version of the real thing in both cases renders them less able to do their appropriate and very important work. You can see the same pattern in the academy in some ways, where it rather than serving the institutional purpose of the university which is to form some portion of the rising generations teaching and learning we find a lot of people in the university using the institution as a platform for virtue signaling or political cul