What does it take to rebuild a society fractured by distrust, populism, and eroding civic bonds? In his third Yale Conversations lecture, “How America Recovers from All This: A Hopeful Vision for our Common Future,” author and columnist David Brooks traces the shifting cultural paradigms of the past 70 years to diagnose how America arrived at its current crisis.
Drawing on philosophers from Aristotle to Max Scheler, Brooks examines how successive waves of cultural change have given way to widespread disillusionment — with institutions, with leadership, and with one another — and how that disillusionment hardens into resentment. The antidote, he argues, is not political but cultural: a renewed commitment to humanistic values, earnest admiration, and what he calls defiant humanism. The lecture took place on April 7, 2026, at Yale University. A Q&A follows.
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