For those of us who observe these developments with concern, and believe that there are at least some things in the old order worth preserving, the response to these momentous changes should be serious introspection. Here are three questions, in roughly ascending order of difficulty, to which we should, at a minimum, have a decent answer:
- Why did the old dispensation lose the support of so many people?
- Where does the popularity of radical (and, yes, often irresponsible) alternatives to it come from?
- What might a future look like that addresses these shortcomings in a more responsible way—one that doesn’t insist on returning to a past that is likely gone forever but can credibly promise that we will more fully live up to the most deeply held values and the most oft-repeated promises of our political order?
These questions are incredibly hard to answer. Based on the many pieces I have read and the many conferences and convenings I have attended over the past months, nobody (including me) seems to have a particularly developed or convincing answer to them, especially when it comes to the more difficult, forward-looking ones. But the thing that shocks me the most isn’t that we don’t yet have the answers; it’s that nobody wants to admit the extent to which we are stumbling around in the dark.
