One of the few good things to emerge from the so-called “culture wars” of the last few years has been Honestly with Bari Weiss—a podcast hosted by the eponymous journalist who, citing “unlawful discrimination” and a “hostile work environment,” resigned from The New York Times in July 2020. Since that time, Weiss has embarked on a number of compelling projects, including Honestly. As its title suggests, Weiss’ podcast is meant to search for (if not necessarily find) the sensible “center” in American cultural life. In broad terms, then, she is a political optimist, believing that toxic extremism on both the Left and the Right can be overcome by incisive analysis and patient listening.
Typical of Weiss’ show is her most recent episode “Why No One Trusts Anything.” Featuring journalist Yuval Levin, Weiss seeks to tease out the “underlying condition” of “the brokenness in our society.” According to Levin, who is the author of A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream (2020), the trouble can be traced back to the period after World War II, during which the West’s mainstream institutions (from churches to universities) began to fracture. As institutional consensus has waned, personal dissent has waxed, leaving people vulnerable to alienation, militancy, and paranoia. Even worse, these problems are mutually reinforcing: the more individuals doubt their institutions, the more likely that those institutions will be taken over by interest groups and, increasingly, fringe elements. With this in mind, Levin notes the ironic similarity of the inauguration speeches of President Donald Trump (2017) and of his successor President Joe Biden (2021), both of whom claimed to represent the American mainstream while being dismissed as “radicals” by their opponents.
It’s a thought-provoking discussion. Still, as I listened, it occurred to me that Levin’s genealogy starts chronologically late and, for that reason, risks oversimplification. As I have argued elsewhere, Søren Kierkegaard warned of institutional “formlessness” and its consequences as early as the 1830s. Kierkegaard’s most sustained treatment of this issue is found in A Literary Review (En literair Anmeldelse, 1846), where he distinguishes “the revolutionary age” from “the present age”: the former is shaped by an idea (whether true or false) of the good, while the latter reflects the diffuse interests of the free press, which levels all determinate conceptions of right and wrong. In this nihilistic environment, many will look for a community or an institution—a powerful leader, a righteous movement—to reassert dominance, but this can only happen if the free press is eliminated. Unwittingly, then, Kierkegaard explains the attractiveness of totalitarianism in modern society. Furthermore, contra a thinker such as Levin, Kierkegaard casts doubt on the West’s ability to reestablish institutional trust, precisely because civic structures and cultural values cannot be buttressed in a society that is, in principle, “post-truth.” Of course, Kierkegaard does not thereby counsel despair—there is always God—but his diagnosis, alas, would make for uncomfortable listening on Honestly.
Kingdoms come and kingdoms go. Ours will fall too. The promise of an eternal Kingdom is what comforts me. We seem to be locked in the tensions of Holy Saturday. Just waiting and hoping for Christ’s return.
Kingdoms come and kingdoms go. Ours will fall too. The promise of an eternal Kingdom is what comforts me. We seem to be locked in the tensions of Holy Saturday. Just waiting and hoping for Christ’s return.