7 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2020
    1. flee intimacy and try to replace it with stimulation

      This pattern is expressed in social media virality, porn consumption, etc.

    2. fewer faithful supports

      (see tag)

    3. Brazil

      What about Brazil's status as the "B" in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China), the world's four foremost emerging economies?

    4. the confidence that other people will do what they ought to do most of the time.

      Defined earlier in the article as "a measure of the moral quality of a society—of whether the people and institutions in it are trustworthy, whether they keep their promises and work for the common good."

    5. bobos

      We all know the person, maybe we are the person, who wears stylish (albeit expensive) clothing, but they have a social conscience and are political, they like to travel, they probably have a killer Instagram, and they flaunt their aesthetically pleasing lifestyle. They are bobos.

      Who are bobos? Bobo is short for Bohemian Bourgeois, and it was first defined by the journalist and social critic David Brooks in 2000. But this classification, which goes beyond its predecessor of hipsterism, seems particularly relevant today. Although the term was first brought up in the late 90s and early 00s, it never took hold in the United States. Instead, it took France by storm, and bobo became a defining characteristic of young Parisians. Brooks’ book Bobos in Paradise explained the “new upper class” as people who are a combination of 1960s liberal idealism and the self-interest and love for capitalism of the 1980s. They are the children of yuppies who want more out of life.

      Bobos are affluent, young, and urban who pursued a career they were passionate about. It was never about the money. Most often those jobs have an element of creativity like writing, marketing, advertising, designing, and being a journalist. Now, many of them are also in tech fields. And if they don’t work an artsy job, they are connected to the arts. Either with a liberal arts degree, frequent gallery visits, buying handmade crafts, or making things. They might even spend Saturdays with a journal/sketchbook at a local high-end coffee shop. Mmm cappuccino.

      https://medium.com/@rosekellywhite/what-are-bobos-483884545228

    6. an account of the convulsion that brought us to this fateful moment. Its central focus is social trust. Social trust is a measure of the moral quality of a society—of whether the people and institutions in it are trustworthy, whether they keep their promises and work for the common good. When people in a church lose faith or trust in God, the church collapses. When people in a society lose faith or trust in their institutions and in each other, the nation collapses.

      Central thesis of the article.

    7. Trump is the final instrument of this crisis, but the conditions that brought him to power and make him so dangerous at this moment were decades in the making, and those conditions will not disappear if he is defeated.

      This is the best way I've seen anyone describe Trump. It acknowledges that he is a problem in and of himself, while not forgetting that he is just as much a symptom of deeper societal conditions.