Christopher Hayes: Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy (2012)

A powerful and original argument that traces the roots of our present crisis of authority to an unlikely source: the meritocracy.

Over the past decade, Americans watched in bafflement and rage as one institution after another – from Wall Street to Congress, the Catholic Church to corporate America, even Major League Baseball – imploded under the weight of corruption and incompetence. In the wake of the Fail Decade, Americans have historically low levels of trust in their institutions; the social contract between ordinary citizens and elites lies in tatters.

How did we get here? With Twilight of the Elites, Christopher Hayes offers a radically novel answer. Since the 1960s, as the meritocracy elevated a more diverse group of men and women into power, they learned to embrace the accelerating inequality that had placed them near the very top. Their ascension heightened social distance and spawned a new American elite–one more prone to failure and corruption than any that came before it.

Mixing deft political analysis, timely social commentary, and deep historical understanding, Twilight of the Elites describes how the society we have come to inhabit – utterly forgiving at the top and relentlessly punitive at the bottom – produces leaders who are out of touch with the people they have been trusted to govern. Hayes argues that the public’s failure to trust the federal government, corporate America, and the media has led to a crisis of authority that threatens to engulf not just our politics but our day-to-day lives.

Upending well-worn ideological and partisan categories, Hayes entirely reorients our perspective on our times. Twilight of the Elites is the defining work of social criticism for the post-bailout age.

Publisher Crown Publishers, a division of Random House, New York, June 2012
ISBN 0307720470, 9780307720474
320 pages

review (Glenn Greenwald, Salon)
review (Aaron Swartz)
review (David Brooks, The New York Times)
review (Hua Hsu, Slate)

wikipedia
publisher
google books

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Tom Nicholson: Gorila (2012) [Slovak]

“Kniha Toma Nicholsona je pokusom o sondu do stavu spoločnosti.

O otázkach, ktoré priniesla Gorila, nediskutovali len zasvätené elity, ale jednotlivé okolnosti spomínané v tomto materiáli rozoberali občania s nástojčivou potrebou dozvedieť sa viac o spise a jeho pozadí. V rámci verejnej diskusie politickí lídri nedokázali presvedčivo komunikovať a odpovedať na najdôležitejšiu otázku zo strany verejnosti. Príslušné orgány dodnes nepredložili dôveryhodné výsledky vyšetrovania. Vlažné reakcie politikov priniesli obrovskú aktivitu médií, ktoré sa kauze venovali. Celý proces sprevádzala neistota na strane novinárov.

Materiál Gorila by mal byť spravodajský spis, o ktorom – zatiaľ nemôžu svedčiť jeho autori a tvorcovia, lebo nie sú zbavení mlčanlivosti. Príbeh, ktorý budete čítať, je podávaný subjektívne, z pohľadu autora. Nie je len o samotnom údajnom spise Gorila, ale aj o tom, ako spis vznikol, ako s ním narábal autor a ako reagovali politici či polícia. Je to príbeh, v ktorom nájdete gaunerov aj pozitívne ohlasy.

Tom Nicholson rieši dilemy a opisuje svoju novinársku cestu za overovaním autenticity tohto materiálu. Robí štandardnú novinársku prácu a je na čitateľovi, aby posúdil, či ju odviedol kvalitne, alebo nie. Táto kniha nevie jednoznačne doložiť autenticitu spisu Gorila a nie je ani jej ambíciou o tomto čitateľa presvedčiť.”

Publisher Dixit, s.r.o., 2012
ISBN 9788097103910

spis Gorila, (záloha, TXT)
Od Fica do Fica (filmový dokument Zuzany Piussi, 80 min., 2012), režisérkin komentár

recenzia knihy (Tomáš Němeček, Lidové noviny)

Wikipedia (Slovak)
Wikipedia (English)
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Lawrence Lessig: One Way Forward: The Outsider’s Guide to Fixing the Republic (2012)

“Something is clearly rotten in our Republic. Americans are disillusioned with the political system and angry as hell. They feel like outsiders in their own nation, powerless over their own lives, blocked from having a real voice in how they are governed. But all of this can change. Lawrence Lessig, the renowned Harvard Law School professor and political activist presents a user-friendly, bipartisan manifesto for revolution just when we need it the most. His audaciously simple solution? Kill political corruption at its root: money.”

Publisher Byliner Inc., San Francisco, February 2012
ISBN 1614520232, 9781614520238

Commentary: Cory Doctorow (BoingBoing, 2012).

Author (discussion space for revision of the book)
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