Sublime

Here is where culture enters the picture. I mean“culture” in its anthropological rather than artisticsense. What values and practices can hold people to-gether as the institutions in which they live fragment? My generation suffered from a want of imagination inanswering this question, in advancing the virtues ofsmall-scale community. Community is

Mastery and competence are dramatically devalued at the expense of what Sennett calls “cooperation,” presumably unintentionally echoing Whyte’s far more blatant derision in using this word, but which we are happy to characterize more bluntly as manipulation.

the loss of these small groups, in favor of nation-level organization of atomized individuals, has had serious consequences for human welfare and human agency. We are missing a layer of organization essential for our happiness.

What values and practices can hold people together as the institutions in which they live fragment?