Working at the Clubhouse

I have briefly and shallowly encountered Patrick Deneen’s ideas on a couple separate occasions while at Colgate, so I don’t know his writing very well except to say that I do not share his disdain for liberal society. However, he has one argument that has stuck with me: we should design a more integrated society, one in which there is not such a clear definition between coastal elites and the middle-country, lower socio-economic classes. One way to do this would be required military service putting people from all backgrounds in contact with each other. Young adults would get a sense of struggles they had never imagined; they would understand the magnitude of their privilege. Others would gain a clearer image of what was possible with the American Dream and hard work. All would become more open-minded to the ideas and opinions of those different from them. Our society would be less severely partisan.