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Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from within on Modern Democracy de Tom Nichols

Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from within on Modern Democracy

Autor Tom Nichols
en Limba Engleză Hardback – 18 noi 2021
A highly engaging yet contrarian account of the spread of illiberal and anti-democratic sentiment throughout our culture that places responsibility on the citizens themselves.

Over the past two decades, citizens of democracies across the world have become angrier and angrier with each other--and with their governments. People who claim to value freedom, tolerance, and the rule of law have increasingly embraced illiberal politicians and platforms. These citizens justify their rejection of democratic norms and traditions as a protest against a cast of elite villains, including globalists, militarists, journalists, bureaucrats, intellectuals, and of course, politicians. The only people these voters do not blame for the parlous state of their own democracies is themselves. Is this just a passing moment in history, or a tide that threatens to wash away the democratic experiments of the past three centuries?

In Our Own Worst Enemy, Tom Nichols challenges the current depictions of the rise of illiberal and anti-democratic movements in the United States and elsewhere as the result of the deprivations of globalization or the malign decisions of an undifferentiated elite. Rather, he places the blame for the rise of illiberalism on a different source: the people themselves. Nichols traces the illiberalism of the 21st century to the growth of unchecked narcissism, rising standards of living, global peace, and a resistance to change--all of which have been enabled by a hyper-connected internet culture of resentment. The grievances of ordinary citizens, legitimate or otherwise, are then exploited by political entrepreneurs who thrive on the creation of rage rather than on the encouragement of civic virtue and democratic cooperation. Is there any way out of this predicament? While it will be difficult, Nichols argues that first and foremost, we need to revitalize civic culture, which we can only do by resurrecting the virtues of stoicism, compromise, and cooperation. We also need to recognize how good we actually had it in the immediate pre-COVID era-the period when the trend toward illiberalism took off and accelerated.

Trenchant, contrarian, and highly engaging, Our Own Worst Enemy reframes the debate about how democracies have ended up in this dire state of affairs.

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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9780197518878
ISBN-10: 0197518877
Pagini: 272
Dimensiuni: 148 x 216 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.41 kg
Editura: Oxford University Press
Colecția OUP USA
Locul publicării:New York, United States

Descriere

A highly engaging yet contrarian account of the spread of illiberal and anti-democratic sentiment throughout our culture that places responsibility on the citizens themselves.

Over the past two decades, citizens of democracies across the world have become angrier and angrier with each other--and with their governments. People who claim to value freedom, tolerance, and the rule of law have increasingly embraced illiberal politicians and platforms. These citizens justify their rejection of democratic norms and traditions as a protest against a cast of elite villains, including globalists, militarists, journalists, bureaucrats, intellectuals, and of course, politicians. The only people these voters do not blame for the parlous state of their own democracies is themselves. Is this just a passing moment in history, or a tide that threatens to wash away the democratic experiments of the past three centuries?

In Our Own Worst Enemy, Tom Nichols challenges the current depictions of the rise of illiberal and anti-democratic movements in the United States and elsewhere as the result of the deprivations of globalization or the malign decisions of an undifferentiated elite. Rather, he places the blame for the rise of illiberalism on a different source: the people themselves. Nichols traces the illiberalism of the 21st century to the growth of unchecked narcissism, rising standards of living, global peace, and a resistance to change--all of which have been enabled by a hyper-connected internet culture of resentment. The grievances of ordinary citizens, legitimate or otherwise, are then exploited by political entrepreneurs who thrive on the creation of rage rather than on the encouragement of civic virtue and democratic cooperation. Is there any way out of this predicament? While it will be difficult, Nichols argues that first and foremost, we need to revitalize civic culture, which we can only do by resurrecting the virtues of stoicism, compromise, and cooperation. We also need to recognize how good we actually had it in the immediate pre-COVID era-the period when the trend toward illiberalism took off and accelerated.

Trenchant, contrarian, and highly engaging, Our Own Worst Enemy reframes the debate about how democracies have ended up in this dire state of affairs.

Recenzii

There are few silver linings to the monstrous transformation of the American right: one has been discovering the stalwart minority of decent, intelligent, honest conservatives who fiercely and absolutely reject the party of Trump—such as Tom Nichols. Our Own Worst Enemy is his thoughtful and thought-provoking diagnosis of our urgent democratic crises, which provided me the important pleasure of enjoying, learning from, and arguing with it.
Maybe it's not imaginary conspiracies but rather our own failures—moral, intellectual, political—that are leading Americans to support incompetent, inarticulate and even authoritarian politicians. That's the thesis that Tom Nichols argues amusingly and persuasively in this book before concluding that reform must begin from within.
Nichols has nailed the problem that ails our democracies - and it is us: The narcissism, self-indulgence and nostalgia that come from a society in which the depth of our pockets are matched by the shallowness of our minds. Nichols neither gives into despair nor falls for simplistic solutions. He offers a wise, acute and unblinking measure of our failings—and the glimpse of a way out.
The eloquent jeremiad, that brilliant form of lamentation, is alive and well in the able hands of Tom Nichols. You don't have to agree with him on everything to appreciate his deep commitment to liberal democracy, his horror in the face of authoritarian demagoguery, and his call on democratic citizens to embrace knowledge and virtue. Nichols is that rarest of creatures, a happy scold who believes that deep down, even we terribly flawed human beings are capable of aspiring to higher purposes.
Taking freedom and democracy for granted is a fatal mistake. Our Own Worst Enemy explains why even the greatest nation on Earth isn't immune to the destructive effects of cynicism and ignorance. It is both a history lesson and a sharp examination of painful recent events. The forces of illiberalism are on the rise, and it's not clear that liberal democracy is up to the challenge. This book makes the essential case that ignoring politics is a luxury the citizens of the free world can no longer afford. Being a successful chessplayer requires understanding yourself and your own decision-making process. As Tom Nichols demonstrates in Our Own Worst Enemy, it turns out that's also required to be a successful country. America has enough enemies without turning on itself.

Notă biografică

Tom Nichols is Professor of National Security Affairs, US Naval War College, a columnist for USA Today, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of The Death of Expertise (Oxford 2017), No Use: Nuclear Weapons and US National Security (2013), and Eve of Destruction: The Coming Age of Preventive War (2008). He is also an instructor at the Harvard Extension School and an adjunct professorat the US Air Force School of Strategic Force Studies. He is a former aide in the US Senate and has been a Fellow of the International Security Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.