This is very much a book that needed to be written. Here is one short excerpt:
Powerlessness has become a defining feature of modern society. Americans at all levels of responsibility feel powerless to do what they think is needed. The culture wars, sociologist James Davison Hunter explains, stem from institutional impotence: A “growing majority of Americans believe that their government cannot be trusted, that its leaders . . . are incompetent and self-interested, and that as citizens, they personally have little power to influence the . . .institutions or circumstances that shape their lives.”
Feeling fragile, and buffeted by forces beyond our control, many Americans retreat to online groups defined by identity and by distrust of the other side as “a threat to [our] existence.” It’s hard to identify what’s wrong amid the clamor and conflict in modern society. But a clue can be found in remembering what makes us proud. America is where people roll up our sleeves and get it done.
The ability to do things in our own ways activates the values for which America is well-known: self-reliance, pragmatism, and loyalty to the greater good—what Alexis de Tocqueville called “self-interest, rightly understood.” For most of American history, the power
and imperative to own your actions and solutions—the concept of individual responsibility—was implicit in the idea of freedom.Americans didn’t abandon our belief in individual responsibility. It was taken away from us by post 1960s legal framework that, with the best of intentions, made people squirm through the eye of a legal needle before taking responsibility. Individual responsibility to a broader group, for example, was dislodged by a new concept of individual rights focused on what’s best for one person or
constituency. The can-do culture became the can’tdo culture.At every level of responsibility, Americans have lost the authority to do what they think is sensible. The teacher in the classroom, the principal in a school, the nurse in the hospital, the official in Washington, the parent on the field trip, the head of the local charity or church . . . all have their hands tied by real or feared legal constraints.
And yes he does propose concrete solutions, most of all at the level of the law. The whole thing is only 84 pp., and this is one of the books that comes closest to diagnosing what is wrong with our country. The subtitle is Designing the Framework for a Flourishing Society.
The post *Everyday Freedom*, by Philip K. Howard appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
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