Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
“I have a view that is uncommon among social scientists, which is that moral revolutions are real and they change our culture,” Robert Putnam told me. In the early 20th century, a group of liberal Christians, including the pastor Walter Rauschenbusch, urged other Christians to expand their faith from a narrow concern for personal salvation to a pub... See more
Derek Thompson • The Anti-Social Century
Regular attendance at a house of worship is the most accurate predictor of altruism,
Jonathan Sacks • Studies in Spirituality (Covenant & Conversation Book 9)
Americans used to live within “place-based networks” of clubs, churches, schools, commerce, and recreation that overlapped, wrapping individuals in social support. Local networks protected individuals from isolation and loneliness.
Those networks have largely disappeared, replaced by networks based outside the local community. We shop and interact ... See more
Those networks have largely disappeared, replaced by networks based outside the local community. We shop and interact ... See more
Why we need to design community into neighborhoods
in communities with a clear mission and sense of purpose,”
Bob Smietana • Reorganized Religion
Robert Bellah signaled this shift in the 1980s with the book Habits of the Heart. In it, his team described the shift away from identities formed in relation with local people and places, and toward a greater individualism that turned away from others across the street, a few doors down, or up a flight of stairs.10
Alan J. Roxburgh • Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World
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.
Sarah Perry • Gardens Need Walls: On Boundaries, Ritual, and Beauty
Robert D. Putnam.
Marie K. Shanahan • Journalism, Online Comments, and the Future of Public Discourse
Proposition 2. The more modernized the society, the more extended the rationalized institutional structure in given domains and the greater the number of domains containing rationalized institutions.