Share this page!

Shadi Hamid Profile picture
Twitter logo
31 Mar, 4 tweets, 3 min read
Can we live with decadence? A review of the new edition of @DouthatNYT's excellent book

Must-read from @matt_hw8 for @WCrowdsLive:

wisdomofcrowds.live/decadent-socie…
One of the main insights from @douthatnyt's book is that decadence is obviously "bad," but it's by no means the worst thing a society can experience. If the choice is between living with decadence or being "rescued" from it by a Napoleonic figure, I know which I'd choose
For me, the most fascinating thing about the new edition of @DouthatNYT's book is that COVID "hardly plays a role"

As @matt_hw8 points out: "If a once-in-a-century pandemic can’t jolt us out of our somnolent decline, maybe nothing can"

wisdomofcrowds.live/decadent-socie…
The counter to this is the growing love affair with deficit spending in the form of enormous stimulus. Some lament this, but I think it's one of the few positive outcomes of the past year. We might be stagnant (or worse) culturally, but at least we won't be economically stagnant

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Shadi Hamid

Shadi Hamid Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @shadihamid

Shadi Hamid Profile picture
1 Apr
Working on my first ever Friday Essay for @WCrowdsLive, a new subscribers-only feature where @dmarusic and I alternate essays each week. Subscribe here: wisdomofcrowds.live/subscribe/ Image
Last week, @dmarusic wrote our first ever Friday Essay, and it's very, very good. I'm biased, but it's one of the most insightful pieces on American religion that I've read in a long while. Check it out.

'The Paradox of American Faith'

wisdomofcrowds.live/american-faith/
The goal is that a year from now, we'll have 50 or so essays that are high quality but also a little bit odd, because they won't be meant for tens of thousands of people to read.

We want to make the essay fun again.

wisdomofcrowds.live
Read 4 tweets
Shadi Hamid Profile picture
30 Mar
1. New Gallup numbers are out on US religion. Yes, church membership isn't an exact proxy for religiosity. But membership tells us about the structured presence of religion in people's lives. As a measure, it's likely to have more political implications than personal belief
2. But individual religiosity has *also *decreased, if not to the same extent. There has been a significant decrease in number of Americans who say God or religion is important in their daily lives, and the numbers are particularly low for young Americans

pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020…
3. Secularization is real and rapid. "Nones"—atheists, agnostics, and those claiming no religion—today represent a quarter of the population. And this has happened over a relatively short period of time

pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-…
Read 6 tweets
Shadi Hamid Profile picture
24 Mar
Who knows. Maybe “whiteness” doesn’t explain everything. Image
It's been hard to watch otherwise smart liberals twist themselves into knots trying to figure out how to apply absurd and arbitrary constructions around race to current events
Critical race theory, or whatever you want to call this silliness, is objectionable for a number of reasons, but at a very basic level it makes people sound ridiculous
Read 4 tweets
Shadi Hamid Profile picture
21 Mar
Yes, I know people like this. And I worry about them. Who would have thought, irrationality and science going hand in hand? COVID absolutism is its own kind of fanaticism. If you're going to believe in something (and everyone believes in *something*) this is one of the options
Then there are more normal examples of COVID absolutism. In weeks when daily cases were only *50* in a city of half a million, I knew young people with no health conditions who refused to do outdoor dining without a mask
The misinformation around indoor dining was interesting as well, where people would act like it was the most dangerous thing imaginable. To my knowledge, very few (if any?) DC restaurants closed down in recent months due to tracers finding indoor transmission as the source
Read 6 tweets
Shadi Hamid Profile picture
19 Mar
Over the last two decades, America witnessed its sharpest decline in church membership in recorded history. Secularists hoped that religious decline would make for a more rational politics. That didn't happen. Be careful what you wish for.

theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
In my work on pluralism and living with deep difference, I keep returning to the Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper. He argued that all strongly held ideologies were effectively faith-based, and that no human being could survive long without a "pivot."
If deeply felt conviction is sublimated religion, then this has major implications. In my @TheAtlantic article, I cite the political theorist @SWGoldman who calls this "the law of the conservation of religion"

theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
Read 5 tweets
Shadi Hamid Profile picture
14 Mar
Thrilled to announce a new feature as part of the growing @WCrowdsLive family. We've launched The Democracy Essays, curated by political philosopher @sckimbriel and TNR staff writer @OsitaNwanevu. They have free rein.

Read their introduction here: wisdomofcrowds.live/introducing-th…
Here's @sckimbriel first essay for @WCrowdsLive—"What is Democracy For?" It's fascinating and incisive like few things I've seen online and gives a taste of some of the questions they'll be exploring. wisdomofcrowds.live/what-is-democr…
One of our preoccupations at @WCrowdsLive has been the question of democracy as a means to other things we hold dear or an end unto itself. This is our attempt to explore these questions in a more systematic and exploratory way.
Read 9 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @shadihamid has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @shadihamid!

Read all threads by @shadihamid