THREAD: We have a historic, even generational opportunity ahead of us just 11 days from now. Let me outline it for you. I'm gonna try and make this non-partisan. I hope you don't judge me irretrievably naïve.

The fact is, much of what's going on in America today is unsustainable. Whether it's government debt, or higher education, climate, or income inequality, it seems pretty clear to just about everyone that if we stay on current trajectory, America is hosed.
I'm not speaking to or about any particular side although if you follow me you probably know where I'm coming from. But 11 days from now we can all collectively choose to keep doing what we're doing -- which means we'll keep getting what we got...
...or we can choose to take a deep breath, close our eyes for a second, and say, "It's time to change." Part of that means turning down the rhetoric. It means taking an inventory of what's broken and thinking hard about how -- together -- we can make things a little less bad.
It means thinking practically about what to do next, and recognizing that the time for maximalist thinking is over; fixing our country will take compromise. All sides will suffer some disappointment, that's how you know the deal was close as possible to fair.
It means thinking about people who haven't been able to take part in the last decade's economic recovery, whether that's inner city kids or people in rural communities that have been wrecked by opioids.
Assigning blame -- except where criminal acts have been committed -- is a pointless exercise. A lot of mistakes have been made; let's focus on repairing the damage.
It also means recognizing that the world has moved on while we've been focused inward. There are folks out there enjoying & causing our pain 🇷🇺 but there are also people that want to supplant us as a superpower 🇨🇳 If they succeed, our future will look very dark indeed.
And whether we're talking about domestic challenges or foreign policy problems, the solution will only be found in thinking STRATEGICALLY. And by strategically, I mean LONG-TERM. This is not something Americans have historically been great at, at least in the last 50 years.
Short term thinking is based on bad incentive structures -- it results in a bad feedback loop. We need to look at our incentive structures, top to bottom, domestically and foreign, and think hard about how to build incentives that help us long-term.
Theologian James Freeman Clarke said, "A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation." We need more statesmen. They've been in short supply lately.
Anyway, returning to my original tweet: 11 days from now, we can turn the page. We can roll up our sleeves, get our hands dirty, and start fixing our broken country.
In the words of Lincoln, "With malice toward none, and charity toward all...let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." /fin/

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I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x