I think what’s less relevant here is “builder” vs. “non-builder” but whether or not governmental authority is properly hitched to the will of the citizens on average.

The vast distributed efforts by citizens to produce PPE that the government seemed incapable or unwilling to acquire seems to hint at some serious dysfunction.

I think that is part of the problem the author is getting it- the assumption that the government, especially the federal government, is the sole institution that can execute things. Historically, the argument goes, that didn't used to be the case. People self organized, but they organized into INSTITUTIONS, not just brief movements- the NAACP was formed in 1909.

I always think of my grandparents in these discussions. They had an enormously active civic life their entire lives- quite literally, my grandfather passed away at a church lecture. They helped build institutions like an anti-smoking organization, their church, or the local arts organization- not necessarily as leaders, but as the people who made things happen.

Boomers, Xers, and millenials... don't seem to do this. It's pretty well documented (see Bowling Alone).

I'm with the author here- our the ability to organize has been greatly diminished even as our ability to communicate has gone up. There are probably many reasons why- entertainment is far more plentiful and an alternative to civic engagement, maybe our existing institutions really are that good, the trained responses the author discuss. Whatever it is, I think it is a shame- participating in civic society is one the great joys in life, and I agree that the lack of participation saps something of the United States culture and success.

That being said, civic society doesn't operate in isolation. It tends to interact with government extensively, but it can lend legitimacy and guidance to government actions. You can see this at work with the government responses to the BLM movement- one of the great civic society triumphs of recent times, although a very different one then the author talks about.

The Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese responses were undergirded by large functional government bureaucracies, trust me. It wasn't town hall democracies and local small-scale stuff like that, that arranged mass functional responses to the crisis. Korea and Taiwan have civic society and the PRC really doesn't, the thing that makes them different is government competence and government operational capability.

Pandemic response is extremely within the wheelhouse of government.

Funny, I am just reading biography of Rosa Park and NAACP was not exactly popular organization in her life time. The parents did not wanted their children to be in youth wing and membership was low where she lived. She was incredibly frustrated by all that prior bus event blowing up.

NAACP also pushed government most of the time - the registering for vote, push to make school desegregation actually happen, letter writing about various criminal causes. They were not trying to do it without government, they were trying to make government do the right thing.

Meanwhile, we built HRC, TLC, BLM, ... On a smaller scale, there's things like ONE Archives. There's Mutual Aid groups.

There's absolutely no evidence for the theory that we as a society aren't socially active any more. There is evidence of a split in society.

my understanding is that the US peak institutional involvement was 1959.

I link it to the strong trend of anti-authoritarianism and individualism that started to become current in the 50s & 60s. Today it manifests in the ancap and anarcho-communist ideologies most extremely, but it also manifests everywhere as trust breaks down and a general unwillingness to move in concert with others at a large scale is present.

Full agreement there. (Plus a side of vicious anti-science sentiment, with a good helping of a complete misunderstanding what "freedom" is)

I do believe that we as a society are currently trying to decide if we want to build something communal, or if we want to commit to extreme selfishness. It'd be more fun to read about it in a history book, but it sure is interesting.

I’d argue that America committed 100% to selfishness by the 1980s. This is when you begin to see community institutions begin to be replaced with private ones, all the way down to the destruction of community pools for private ones.

If only that dichotomy was reflected in our two political parties. But nope, we just have centrist "please preserve the status quo" candidate and right-wing "extreme selfishness" candidate. No builders allowed.

I understand the sentiment, but: Are you running for a local office? Are you engaged in changing election laws? If you're builder, building a better election system is a noble task, and one that requires tackling.

I wonder if the author is aware of the phenomenon of covid-19 mutual aid groups. If anything, I wish people were more willing to just find someone else who already organized instead of create the Local Neighborhood Organization For Laptops For SchoolChildren #254 so they can do their bit.

Not really. The America of today -- and particularly the current presidential administration -- is much more alike governments of the past. The American federal government of today has not entered any foreign wars and certainly not centralized any more leadership under the current administration, which is a far cry from what is typical. Usually, an emergency on the level of COVID would result in the federal government immediately attempting to seize power. Our current administration was extremely reluctant to do so, rather relying on the collective enterprise of individual Americans self organizing.

This is an... incredible narrative. Which country assassinated another country's military chief at the start of the year? Which superpower has its propaganda machine working overtime to foment sinophobia? Which federal government attempted to steal PPE from the states and stockpile it for other electorally relevant states, while totally controlling the fiscal response to the pandemic? Chemical weapons on citizens for a photo op?

Certainly sounds like a peace-loving administration that empowers the citizenry.