thing to do is to meet the people who are articulating the ideas that are being used in the wrong way, except that we are going to have to reason about these issues from the inside inhabit these views that are radically different from ours and i think we have to begin by accepting these kinds of impulses that are spiritual and political beings and people are going to drop this together means that the global conversation about proper free orders is going to have to be part of the theological conversation so i think that's where i would begin by saying look we have got to understand the different ideas for different ideologies that are here and we can assume they are going away because they come back to life. >> let's give our speakers a round of applause.

[applause] >> thank you david and good questions and thank you for all the great questions and i'm glad i did not have to answer them. thank you chris and kevin for doing that and we will reconvene in 15 minutes at 10:30 for a panel on civic virtue. >> thank you for being here. i'm a fellow here at the center. it's a great pleasure to be up here with you to discuss virtue. a senior fellow at the hoover institution and author of numerous books. you ball is director of social cultural constitutional studies at the american enterprise institute and the author of

numerous books and we will start i think with you. >> thank you very much. it's great to be here with my fellow 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 least to approach the panelist topics civic virtue in its decline, its reinvigoration from a somewhat autobiographical perspective. long ago and far away when i went to college the cutting-edge topic was something that we called grave tones, the critique of liberalism and we had leading

authors and books. we read a book called knowledge and politics by roberto unger, kind of mad genius and i underline both words. we read the writings of charles taylor and we read the writings of alastair mcintyre. especially influenced by a book called virtues. some of you who have studied political theory may be familiar with this book. the core arguments of mcintyre's book a great interest to those of us who are interested is the critique of liberalism were liberalism in the modern tradition is freedom. mcintyre's core argument will be familiar to many of you especially those of you who follow the debate supposed liberalism. mcintyre's argument 40 years ago was we have lost the ability to speak coherently about the

virtues, excellences of character. we have even forgotten, we modern contemporary men and women, we have forgotten that the virtues are central to the moral life. the culprit is liberalism, the modern tradition of freedom. now according to mcintyre nietzsche exposed the incoherence of this modern traditional freedom and nietzsche showed the modern tradition of freedom and inevitably deteriorate into nihilism. but argued mcintyre somehow his criticism did not reach the thinking of premodern figures most notably eras doddle and the aristotelian tradition therefore argued mcintyre our choice was a stark one. nietzsche and nihilism are the

aristotelian tradition and the virtues. faced with that stark choice people would choose a course aristotle who practiced the aristotelian tradition which includes aquinas synthesis of aristotle and christianity. again that outlined at the history of political philosophy should sound familiar especially to those of you who follow contemporary debates and abuse of the post liberal. now, i want to assert and i'll be brief here of course that mcintyre's analysis was wrong in all major respects. i say that as someone who has, who greatly admires mcintyre for whom i've learned more than

from almost any other thinker. nevertheless he was wrong about nietzsche wrong about aristotle and braun about the modern tradition. here i can mostly only assert these claims and sketch what i think is a better view but i hope the assertions in the sketch will shed some light on our question civic virtue in a liberal or rights protecting democracy. and what i would say about mcintyre i think applies to the post liberal critique of liberalism. mcintyre misrepresents nietzsche's critique of philosophy. nietzsche did not show specifically modern philosophy was an expression of will and he did not believe himself to have shown that.

nietzsche actually believed he had accomplished something much more radical. he believed to have established that all great philosophy play-dough aristotle no less than played more culpably and was reducible to the moral intention of the philosophers themselves and all rationalism beginning with play-dough at the moment and nietzsche saying all of it, then it did in nihilism. nietzsche's critique embraced classical and medieval political philosophy. second country to mcintyre, aristotelian political science does not dictate the repudiation of liberal democracy, a regime based on the premise that human beings are by nature.

the aristotelian political science does not demand its replacement with a regime devoted to the promotion of virtue. rather aristotelian political 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, focus on liberal democracies defining principals and looks for ways to preserve and improve liberal democracy. in the politics of aristotle does describe the regime that is devoted to promoting virtue. he does not however to gently count on its realization. more less he advises that you are extremely unlikely not just

at this moment in the 21st century but in age increase as well you are extremely unlikely to live in a regime devoted to the promotion of virtue and aristotle add here you are extremely unlikely to find yourself in a circumstance that allows you to build the best regime. the best we can recently hope for is an imperfect regime. aristotle calls it quality of the regime in which some people in the minority are wealthy and the majority tends to be less wealthy and are balanced by a large middle class. each class contributes to distinctive virtues and vices to this mixed regime. in short, particularly if you

live in a regime that recognize the democratic freedom and equality of aristotelian political science recommends measures of accommodation, balance and calibration prevents your regime from deteriorating into something much worse. so much for nietzsche and aristotelian political science. mcintyre's 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 inspired by mcintyre he set out to write a book that more less vindicated that thesis the liberal tradition repudiates a renders incoherent of moral virtue. before it began riding in

earnest i did my due diligence so i resolved to reread a major figure in this modern tradition of freedom. hobbs locke and mill just to make sure there were no stray mentions of virtues here and there. and that i could establish that the liberal tradition was not only repudiated the virtues that was intrinsically incapable of giving an account. i started with hobbs who seemed to me the easiest case. maybe not a liberal a proto-liberal. he talks about inalienable rights and does a government is there to protect them but he was also known as the of sounds very pretty at a political theory based on accrued mechanistic understanding of nature and the hedonistic view of humanity. so course he had no room for virtue.

if i began reading love i send and right there in the introduction thought maybe i had a misbegotten copy of it but there in the introduction the first page hobbs says all serious study of politics is based on the syncretic maxim and to engage in political science one have to study ones own passion and compare those passions to the passions of others and reason comes to passion. if it sounds mechanistic and sound connected to what i understood to be a political science that appreciated the virtues. qualities of excellence of mind of character. so i was only slightly thrown off. then i got to the end of chapter 15 of love i isn't.

chapter 15, needs through three crucial chapters with 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. the laws of nature. and at the end of chapter 15 he says the ways or means to peace art justice, gratitude modesty equity mercy and the rest of the laws of nature which are good. that is to say moral virtues and the ads now the science of virtue and vice is moral philosophy. i set out to write a book that said this tradition knows nothing of the virtues following mcintyre and can't make sense of them and at the end of

chapter 15 actually he adds the laws of nature are not really laws. conclusions and theorems and more than that they name quality of mind and character. and with each additional thinker i studied i had a similar experience. i will only mention locke here. lock much-maligned, taken as a kind of demonic figure by the post liberalist turning point who is responsible for establishing a philosophy successively focused on individual freedoms but in individual freedom that really means radical emancipation from all external causes. lock is really a postmodern. but there i am reading john locke and i come to chapter 6 and in the middle of an account in his second treatise the book

is the origin and the extent the aims of political power, a chapter on education and the family and parents essential role in preparing their children, daughters as well as sons, for a life of freedom by disciplining them, by teaching them the virtues. and then i'm guided to a book called some thoughts concerning education. and some thoughts concerning education john locke is typically presented once again as upset as to read with freedom provide a manual for parents on how to educate their children. what is at the heart of lockean education? the moral virtues to enjoy freedom and to maintain free institutions argues lock children need to be raised and

disciplined by their parents in a way to inculcate a whole range of qualities of mind and character gridlock insisted the moral or choose -- virtues were essential to a society based on freedom. one could say something similar about condi and mills and many others in the modern traditional freedom. to conclude what about today? we certainly do suffer from a dearth of civic virtues. one can identify the multiplicity of causes. modernity, secularization, the unraveling of the traditional family, the decline of community. does liberal democracy itself undermined the virtues necessary to its survival that the post liberals are so fond of saying? answer, yes a corset does but i

immediately add this a very important qualification. liberal democracy under to mind the virtues which it depends by taking its principle the principle of individual freedom to an extreme. but the post liberals to her so fond of making this argument in the name of aristotle forget aristotle's teaching which is also play-dough's teaching. all regimes not just liberal democracy but all regimes undermined the virtues necessary for their survival by taking a leading principals to an extreme. this is the problem of all regimes. proper response therefore is not to denounce and to further liberal democracy, especially given its great blessings, individual freedom, equality under law, prosperity and toleration. instead the proper response is

to devise reforms to counteracted diseases to which liberal democracies are prone. today what are the key virtues that we should be concerned about? a long topic but for starters liberal democracies depend on civility toleration sympathetic imagination prevents moderation and courage. these are both civic virtues, the virtues connected to citizenship and moral virtues of virtues connected to excellence of human beings. how should liberal democracies called -- and liberal democracies we don't rely primarily on government for the cultivation of virtues that don't make the mistake that virtues 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 the liberal education and education for freedom and an education that focus -- would focus on literacy reading riding arithmetic the principals of american constitutional government in the history of america, focus on larger western civilization, understanding the treasures of western civilization for serving them. and students would learn about other civilizations and the entire education from youth through higher education would ensure that students hear the other side of the argument has an education in which you hear the other side of the argument is one that promotes the virtues we so desperately need. happy to elaborate on these and other themes during the discussion. thank you.

[applause] >> thanks very much. i'm going to pick up on some of the themes that peter brought up. it's a great honor to be on a panel with him and being here speaking to all of you. i have a crucial set of questions. when i sat down to think about what to say here i looked at the agenda in the name of our panel is just virtue. that's nice but i needed a little more and i added the note and asked what is the question we are answering here and he wrote back to me saying the question for your panel is quote how should liberal democracies cultivate the civic virtues they need and that's actually a very rich question which i really like a lot and i'm going to try to answer that question by thinking about the question just a little bit.

it's a question that assumes to begin with several important premises that i think are right but that are worth stating implicitly for the first of these is at the liberal democracy for the democratic republic requires certain particular virtues but i think that's true of any society and 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 liberal and democratic virtues. exactly what those are appears at the end of that sum. i think it's a long and contested question but maybe we can agree as a liberal democracy we require virtues like toleration patience and humility and as a republic would require some virtues like responsibility and courage and honesty and magnanimity and faith. republican virtues and liberal

virtues are compatible up to a point though there's also some tension between them but those i think are the kinds of virtues that we need to instill in cultivate to sustain our society strength. the second premise beyond the fact our society needs particular kinds of virtues is that a society's cultivate. to produce certain kinds of virtues and that's plainly true. the way in which we live tends to shape the kind of people that we are. in societies by their practices and their habits and assumptions form and historical self-understanding tend to shape particular sorts of people. our society needs a certain kind of person in our society shapes a certain kind of person the question for us is how can those to be aligned? how can we cultivate the kind to people that we also need in order to sustain the strength of our society. think we have to see that this

will not happen on its own by inertia, by default. we have to do it explicitly and intentionally and maybe that's especially true in a liberal democracy. there's no avoiding the fact that left to ourselves we citizens of the democratic republic will often tend to ignore our obligations to one another into a larger society but remember our rights and not our duties. we will remember what we are owed but not what we owe. we forget that the free and responsible individual is less in actual fact than the social achievement that we have to work to sustain. i think that's true in any society that it will tend to become an excessive form of what it is fundamentally and will turn virtues and devices. in some ways because we are free this is especially true of our society and it's also true that

we particularly tend to neglect the republican virtues that are essential to government by the people in which we all have to play a civic world and take joint responsibility. we tend to neglect the way by which it becomes possible for the citizens of a free society to understand themselves and to engage in some common effort of some common good so to speak of our country in the first-person plural is we the people, is we who see certain truths to be self-evident to the freedom and equality and prosperity and share them energy of a liberal society tend to make us forget to let these virtues even though these are all dependent on those virtues. free societies don't coerce people to do the right thing so they can only really succeed if people generally choose to do the right thing and what we want to do and what what we have to do are more or less roughly aligned and that requires

serious attention to the formation of our desires and teaching us what to want. that kind of attention is more essential in a free society than a nonfree society especially in a free society that wants to govern itself in a liberal democracy. james madison puts it in federalist 55 republican governor 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 designs and they can tell us what everyone this good and it can turn our attention away from precisely the cultivation of virtues. there's not a way around that fact that reality is not in itself an argument against democracy. it cannot denied the extraordinary moral achievements as a society of free people living together as fellow citizens despite their differences over the

extraordinary balance the 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 a society is not an argument against that society. it is rather an argument for working consciously and conscientiously to cultivate the ethos of our society. some of the tendencies of liberal democratic live in cultivate it's more virtuous potential. can we do that? of course we can do that. look around you. we do it all the time. it's too easy when we look at our country now to see the ways it's failing or the ways our culture is corroding in a trusted one another is declining. it's true all those things are happening. they are made up but it's essential only look at our country verse -- we first see what it's doing well so we can see how it might realistically

address the many things it does. our country does a lot of this work of cultivation very well and produces the kinds of people that attend the naval academy and a vast variety of ways all over country are working hard to form the next generation of americans to sustain our society. that happens in countless communities all the time in religious congregations in schools and many pockets of humanity throughout higher education and a vast array of bottom-up political economic and cultural efforts to strengthen our society. that kind of work is always threatened and in some respects it's threatened now more intensely than usual but it goes on and to pretend that it's no longer possible as i think ultimately to shirk the work of doing it which is hard work. we do cultivate virtues but the question began with an important word, the word how, how do we

cultivate virtue so how can we do a better? that question i would argue comprises us to think about a subject that free and liberal societies which are therefore often individualistic societies we tend to like to avoid the requires us to think about institutions. we think about our society we naturally tend to imagine it as a kind of vast open space is filled with individuals making choices. sometimes we see that these individuals are having trouble connecting with each other so we work to address that by looking for ways to connect them. we talk about taking on loneliness and isolation do various sorts of metaphors and building bridges and tearing down walls. i think there's value in that kind of thinking but it ultimately mistakes the character of our social life because it adores the structure of socialism and the forms of common actions that make it possible. if our society is a vast open space not just a space filled with individuals it's a space

filled with these forms and structures of socialism. a space filled with institutions. institutions are broad and vague sort of term but for the sake of it in complicity -- simplicity institutions are the surprise -- the forms and structures would do. some institutions or organizations the naval academy's institution as it was the hospital business or church technically legally formalized at some institutions are forms of the different type of shape bylaws and norms that they aren't exactly organizations. the family is the first and foremost institution of any kind. you can talk about a profession like medicine or rule of law. institutions are durable. they keep their shape over time and tend to change only slowly and gradually. a flash mob is not an institution that most important what's distinct about institutions is that it's a form in the deepest sense. a form is a structure the shape

of a whole and the social form an institution is not just a bunch of people, the bunch of people ordered together to achieve a purpose to pursue a goal to advance ideals. institutions give each of them a role in relation to each other in an ocean to the purchase they are trying to achieve together. it says you are a student you are a teacher and you are principal in each of you have certain responsibilities and applications and privileges. together you are pursuing the education of a rising generation that means institutions are also by their nature formative a structure interactions with each other so they structure each of us and they shape our habits and expectations and they shape our character, they shape our soul. they helped to form us and in that way they also cultivate some distinct virtues in us. they are often the answer to the how question. when you shape once virtues you

are just a person floating out there in the world but you are a student at the school or a doctor at that hospital a member of the church or worker of that factory and that gives you a particular kind of character a set of goals and boundaries and behaviors. there such a thing in the world as a lawyer. you'll run into people and you asked them what they do and they'll say i'm an accountant or a memory and an they'd say yeah i are to guess that. the reason you ask is precisely because you have some expectations about how institutions form. institutional life is often where virtues are cultivated and what happens inside of her institutions that make that cultivation possible is not just instruction but an example example of the situation were shaped to live in a certain way by watching others by asking ourselves in ways they give us virtuous habits so cultivating

the habit of art democratic republic is a challenge or institution. a frail years of formation or very often institutional failures of the family of community of professional institutions of educational institutions religious institutions and requires healthy institution that are geared to habituate enough of those virtues and because those virtues sometimes cut against the ethos of liberal democracy itself some of our most important petitions have to cut against that ethos too. many institutions that are essential to delivering democracy are not themselves liberal or democratic. the family is not a democracy and neither is the naval academy. the habits they give us or the habits of a free society but they aren't always the habits that are free society will cultivate if just left to itself so although they are culture shaping their also countercultural. they shape our culture precisely

the keeping it in an intention within itself and the tension is the secret song american life. every kind of society tends to go to excess and to turn its virtues and vices and every kind of society therefore required the kind of moderation of those vices. that's what a lot of a lot of our institutions do for us. people inside those institutions especially the people of most authority and power in them have to think consciously about the formative part that they play and that these institutions play so what kind of example they are setting what kind of havoc they are creating and people shaped by the institution they are in. what that means is the leaders of institution have to sustain people's trust in the institutions they are responsible for by upholding their end of the bargain by doing their core job. the people in positions of leadership have authority but in some ways for all of us since we all have some important part to

play in an institution that often have to start by asking the great unanswered question. given my role here how should i behave? that's what someone in institution they in institution they are both listeners were asked in a moment of decision a lot of the trouble that spacing are core institutions now we describe as a widespread failure to ask that kind of question. given my role here how should i behave? is a member of congress or a soldier or sailor or student or teacher what should i be doing here? it's a question that can make us better because the moment of decision-making forces to think about what's expected of us and what's required of us and to think about what would be responsible and not just what do i want? we can all easily think of an every day situation where that kind of question makes a difference. if i'm driving on a highway and someone cuts me off and i want to tell them what i think of them but i remember that the kids are in the backseat i don't do it. that isn't as simple since howard institution institution

shape us but they force us to think about role we have that requires us to behave in some particular way. a lot of people we most respect now tend to think about that question before they make a court judgment and let the people who drive us who seem to be part of the problem failed to ask that question and when they obviously should. the appeal of ignore that question is very powerful. there's a strong temptation now for many of her institutions to abandon their core work and instead just treat the institution as a kind of platform or performance are making a political statement for sending a cultural message are just getting more followers on social media. rather than playing the particular role assigned to us in the institutions that matter. that temptation is deadly to trust and its it's deadly to institutional integrity and therefore it's also deadly to the work of cultivating the virtues that are most crucial to our democratic republic. do you feel that pressure here

and the pressure to be just another place where the prejudices of our elite culture mindlessly reaffirmed over and over again rather than playing a distinct role and purpose and mission a character that's willing to be countercultural to secure the preconditions for our society. it's an irony of live in a free society but also a source of great strength for us that in a free society many of our crucial institutions are as basic countercultural. they are always pushing against the tide of conventional wisdom cultivating virtues that are an active tension with the default tendencies of our society. to remain free and liberal and republican our society has do be sure that it sustains the space of these individuals. even maybe especially when they aren't always liberal institutions themselves, space for family and religion and it generally -- for military institutions that traditional is guarding her capacity to cultivate these requires the

space in which those institutions can work. it means insisting on the ability of parents to make choices about how their children are raised and that means insisting on a genuine freedom of religious communities. it means teaching and learning even though ideas the pose challenges to contemporary forays and assumptions. system of government and i will close here is actually very aware of this need to facilitate formation. we often think for example of the key rights that are protected by the first amendment as purely individual rights to do whatever you want but if you actually look at those rights they are rights to participate in formative institutions come institutions that teach us what to watch, the freedom of assembly office he can't be practiced individually but neither can a freedom of the press or of speech for petition our religious freedom. it necessarily comes first in the first amendment. these are all writes that appear individual but they are rights

of individuals to participate in the lives of institutions of the communities in necessarily formative ways but our society can cultivate the virtues a requires by working to keep its institutions from a family on a strong free and protected. can we as individuals can cultivate those virtues in ourselves and others i self-consciously embracing are rolled in these institutions. we often fail on both of these crucial fronts at the same time and doing better we are prepared to understand how virtues are cultivated and why institutions 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 so again thank you very much for involving me in the conversation. [applause] >> we have a short time for questions for those who want to queue up at the mic.

>> first of all thank you for taking the time to speak with us but he spoke of nietzsche and nihilism in referring to his ideas and solutions what is your take on the pursuit of the relevant to individual liberty in a liberal democracy given its radical departure from traditional community values symbolized by metamorphosis. >> it's my fault and i haven't been asked a question like that in knows how long and i'm delighted to be asked the question. that speech, the opening speech, is an effort for the metamorphosis of the superman.

three stages. the first stage you submit to discipline what nietzsche had in mind. he speaks about the tyranny of capricious laws being the source of all moral virtue. the second stage is a lion shaking off the values, 1001 values of tradition and the third stage is actually the character that he gives this job too is a child who invents sacred gains, a radical form of creation. from my point of view nietzsche's sketch of the three metamorphoses of the spirit shows how innocent utopian and unrealistic nietzsche is

ultimately to be radically free of inherited values, traditions, disciplines, institutions is to be a childlike in b yourself become responsible for creating holy rights and ceremonies and from my point of view the achievement of there are a few studies to demonstrate that this original dream of being free of traditions and inherited values cannot be achieved and does lead to nowhere and therefore if that gives us a motive for reconsidering what nietzsche and he thought to repudiate tradition. both the modern tradition of freedom and tradition. >> thank you sir.

>> thank you so much. >> thank you gentlemen for your speeches. my question specifically was for dr. 11 on institutions he mentioned the family and the naval academy has some good institutions that are countercultural but besides those in your view what are some of those best and worst institutions of shaping the republican virtues that our society often and besides our world where we are as you said what can be done to change and improve these institutions especially when you mentioned they change over time. >> thank you very much for the question. the challenge for us is that a lot of the key decisions that are necessary for that kind of formation are in shape now. they don't recognize their own purpose, their own part in that very important work of civic

formation and of soul forming so that the question is not exactly which institutions to look too. we have to look to family, we have to look at schools and churches in the universities. we have to look to our political system to put in each of those cases in one way or another there's work to be done. i think that's always true but we find ourselves now in a moment when a lot of them are confused about their role and really about the character of our society and even the character of humans itself in ways that are connected and that require concerted work to reacquaint ourselves with the foundations of civic virtue and of a liberal society. some of that work as i said have to be rather countercultural work. it's critical work so belongs in places like universities where it is not happening enough and it belongs in a sense in our

larger culture's efforts to understand its vices but i think part of the reason to surface this idea of institutions, in a free society when things are going well we don't need to think about decision. they'd like to imagine we are just doing what we want but before we do we want in a way that won't destroy us all we have to recall what we want in the institutions that teach us what to want are in trouble now. i think that requires us to dig to the bottom of what a lot of them are for and to think very hard about what our society requires what it's good at and what not and what needs help and that means this is a moment that require some really foundational fundamental conversations. >> thank you very much. >> this question is for

dr. yuval levin. i feel like a lot of institutions are education shaped by the media with the instead of cronkite telling us who it is we have institutions owned by shareholders engagements and? which drives conventional leaders not to provide discussion but often for showmanship of our views. how do you feel the media plays a role in shaping people in the way that you state institutions often do. >> thank you. i'm not so nostalgic for walter cronkite telling us how it is. that just wasn't very often how it really was. i think it is important for us to recognize that control of the flow of information shouldn't be

too tightly constricted. there are a lot of ways in which the america in the middle of the 20th century nostalgia for which is essential if the theme of our politics in the last 25 years actually had a lot of problems and there are ways in which some of their vices were the opposite of power so we missed that time but they had too much confidence in elitist institutions. they were to constricted and solidified of a society where we are too fragmented and degenerative. there are things we can learn from the ways in which that society looks at things differently but coming out of two world wars and depression the america in the middle of the 20th century was intensely cohesive and consolidated and we are not that. i think we have to think about how to get from where we are to a more functional version of the

free society, in a way that is relatively free of nostalgia for the middle of the 20th century. much of that time -- and said with a think about those foundational questions about what's required for us from where we are now to be a free society. the media certainly is a role and innocent they trust we have witnessed then someone institutions began early with the collapse of the trust in the media but some of this driven by economic motives as you suggest the basic economic motive was different now than it was in the heyday. the media response to her social life which forces us to think about more than a media but exemplifies the kind of institutional dysfunction that is evident in many other students because as in congress

and universities and corporations you find people who should be playing a part that those institutions instead standing on it and performing in building a personal following building a personal granted making it systematically impossible for us to trust them. there's a way to think about that in the media but we have to think about that as a larger pattern because it really is a larger pattern of the 21st century in america. >> i agree with this warning which was defined as a longing for a time that never was. still i think we should keep in mind two differences between let's say walter cronkite are and our air. if you go back to the 1960s and if you scroll through the newsroom at the "washington post" most of the reporters you

would have found at the post were not graduates from elite universities. today you stroll through the newsroom at the "washington post" and you discover most of those who are reporting the news, say nothing of those who are planning, art the product of an elite education and much more so than actually the unity, the mainstream media, members of the mainstream media were educated in the same schools, received the same set of values and these days were inculcated if not indoctrinated with a common set of ideas. at the same time because of the digital era we all now can personally tailor our newsfeeds and create cocoons around ourselves. "the new york times" etc. become

more unified but it's easier and easier for each of us to encase ourselves in our own almost private conversation so that it has become harder because we haven't read the same articles and essays every day. it's harder for us to engage in a common conversation across party lines and now identity lines. i just emphasize that as one of the challenges we face today. >> the point about consolidation of elites is important for the united states used to stand up for haven't diversity of elites. he was different from europe in this respect. the people who ran big corporations were just very different from the people who ran major city newspapers or the people who ran the union or the people who ran the government agency or the people, hollywood studio rushed a share of the english department at.

those people are similar to each other now essentially interchangeable on one of the things that means is at the formation of our university matter much more than they used to. the universities form elites across our society in a way that they simply did not use to do until fairly recently in fact. it's one of the reasons why people worry about american society are so obsessed with the university. that is just a function of their own background. that's a function of the change in our society that's worth noticing. >> you've heard some very fine speeches today that someone might think actions speak louder than words so i'm going to practice virtues before your very eyes by ending on that. thank you to our panelists and thank you to all of you. [applause]