It is called The Fractured Republic: Renewing America’s Social Contract in the Age of Individualism. I just received an advance copy, and it went straight to the top of my queue. It is due out May 24, which means that I will probably have written a review three months earlier. No point in publishing a review so early, of course.
Meanwhile, here is a quote from the middle of the last chapter (I started reading the book at the last chapter, and then I’ll go back and read the rest).
Our highly individualist, liberationist ideal of liberty is possible only because we presuppose the existence of a human being and citizen capable of handling a remarkably high degree of freedom and responsibility. We do not often enough reflect on how extraordinary it is that our society actually contains such people. . .
liberty arises when we want to do more or less what we ought to do, so that the moral law, the civil law, and our own will are largely in alignment, and choice and obligation point in the same direction. . .
It requires a commitment precisely to the formative social and cultural institutions that we have seen pulled apart from above and below in our age of fracture. They are where human beings become free men and women ready to govern themselves.
If you are familiar with his thinking, then you can predict that he will proceed to extol the virtues of civil society. If Yuval Levin were sitting in front of a caricaturist, I would tell the artist to draw Levin carrying around a hammer labeled “Burke’s ‘little platoons'” and seeing nails everywhere.
You also can predict that his writing will be clear, insightful, and persuasive. Above all, Levin exemplifies being charitable to those who disagree, without stooping to Brooksian obsequy. This is about as harsh as he gets:
In domestic affairs, the power of the executive branch is now wielded out of the White House to a greater degree than at any point in our history, not only because of President Obama’s distinctly belligerent overreaching, but because of the efforts of presidents (and the willing collusion of Congresses) of both parties over several decades.
“Above all, Levin exemplifies being charitable to those who disagree, without stooping to Brooksian obsequy.”
Brooks is not being obsequious to those he disagrees with. He has joined the Left and is being obsequious to the leader of the Left.
Not only willing collusion but active forcing.
Very little libertarian theory concentrates on the problem of what ought to be done when society contains some people, “capable of handling a remarkably high degree of freedom and responsibility,” and who are, “ready to govern themselves,” but also plenty of people who aren’t. Sometimes FOOL (fear of others liberty) is not foolish, especially if one must operate under the constraint of one-size-fits-all policy.
I view it mostly from the other direction. How responsible have the powerful been with their power. Mostly I see them insulating themselves and leaving the rest of us to live in anarchy amongst the bullies and the brutality of the cops.