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Ellen forwarded this article to me yesterday morning, saying you “must read every word” of this piece.

I didn’t read it immediately, but when I did, it put some of the current protests in a context that makes sense to me.

While George Packer, the author, doesn’t get everything right in his Shouting into an Institutional Void, I believe his article helps to explain where we are today, particularly in relationship to 1968.

Two quotes from his Shouting into the Institutional Void.

The difference between 1968 and 2020 is the difference between a society that failed to solve its biggest problem and a society that no longer has the means to try.”

This is where we are. Trust is missing everywhere—between black Americans and police, between experts and ordinary people, between the government and the governed, between citizens of different identities and beliefs.”

Shouting into the Institutional Void by George Packer, staff writer for The Atlantic, June 5, 2020

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