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American Nightmares: Wang Huning and Alexis de Tocqueville on the Future (scholars-stage.org)
3 points by jseliger on March 29, 2024 | hide | past | favorite | 1 comment


When I was taking civics in the States, de Tocqueville's description of a polity largely composed of interwoven mutually overlapping voluntary associations (a "felt" if you will, as opposed to a "fabric" of society) struck me as (a) desirable, and (b) no longer reflective of the country he had been observing.

Therefore, upon discovering that the "felt of society" tradition is alive and well in my region of continental Europe, I immigrated here.

The bonus: (for anyone else who grew up on Richard Scarry books) my local villages are far more reminiscent of Busytown than anything I left behind in the (Koyaanisqatsi-reminiscent) Old Country.

EDIT: for a different expression of Wang's observations, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(1927_film)




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