The Politics of Petulance by Alan Wolfe

The Politics of Petulance by Alan Wolfe

How did we get into this mess? Every morning, many Americans ask this as, with a cringe, they pick up their phones and look to see what terrible thing President Trump has just said or done. Regardless of what he’s complaining about or whom he’s attacking, a second question comes hard on the heels of the first: How on earth do we get out of this? Alan Wolfe has an answer. In The Politics of Petulance he argues that the core of our problem isn’t Trump himself—it’s that we are mired in an age of political immaturity. That immaturity is not grounded in any one ideology, nor is it a function of age or education. It’s in an abdication of valuing the character of would-be leaders; it’s in a failure to acknowledge, even welcome the complexity of government and society; and it’s in a loss of the ability to be skeptical without being suspicious. In 2016, many Americans were offered tantalizingly simple answers to complicated problems, and, like children being offered a lunch of Pop Rocks and Coke, they reflexively—and mindlessly—accepted. The good news, such as it is, is that we’ve been here before. Wolfe reminds us that we know how to grow up and face down Trump and other demagogues. Wolfe reinvigorates the tradition of public engagement exemplified by midcentury intellectuals such as Richard Hofstadter, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Lionel Trilling—and he draws lessons from their battles with McCarthyism and conspiratorial paranoia. Wolfe mounts a powerful case that we can learn from them to forge a new path for political intervention today. Wolfe has been thinking and writing about American life and politics for decades. He sees this moment as one of real risk. But he’s not throwing up his hands; he’s bracing us. We’ve faced demagogues before. We can find the intellectual maturity to fight back. Yes we can.

Alan Wolfe is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life, Boston College. A prolific and esteemed writer and speaker, Wolfe's books include The Future of Liberalism; Does American Democracy Still Work?; and Return to Greatness: How America Lost Its Sense of Purpose and What it Needs to Do to Recover It. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Erik C. Owens is Assistant Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Theology, Boston College. He lives in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9780226555164
ISBN 10	022655516X
Titel	The Politics of Petulance
Autor	Alan Wolfe
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart	Hardback
Verlag	The University of Chicago Press
Erscheinungsjahr	2018-10-06
Seitenanzahl	224
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.