Description
Book SynopsisAmerican culture is changing, a sentiment echoed in phrases such as “the new normal,” and “in these uncertain times,” that regularly introduce all forms of public discourse now, signally a national sense of vulnerability and transformation. Cultural shifts generally involve multiple catalysts, but in this collection the contributors focus on the role changing discourse norms play in cancel culture, corporatism, the counter-sexual revolution, racialism, and a radically divided political climate. Three central themes arise in the arguments. First, that contemporary discourse norms emphasize outcomes rather than shared understanding, which support institutional and political goals but contribute to the contemporary political divide, and the notion that we are engaged in a zero-sum game. These discourse norms give rise to a form of Adorno’s administered world, such that we order society according to dominant opinions, which generally means those well acclimated to institutional and corporate culture. Finally, as Arendt feared, the personal has become political, meaning that the toxic public discourse invades private discourse, reducing personal autonomy and leaving us perpetually under the scrutiny of institutional authority.
Table of ContentsPart 1: Institutional Discourse
Chapter 1: The Outsourcing of Ethical Thinking, Erik Nordenhaug and Jack Simmons
Chapter 2: The Diversity of “Diversity”: Support for Differing Conceptions of Diversity on the University Campus, Kenneth B. McIntyre and Stacy G. Ulbig
Chapter 3: Undermining Communicative Action in the Medical Encounter: Informed Consent, Compelled Speech, and Promises to Pay, Leigh E. Rich
Chapter 4: Sexual Consent and the Return to Canonical Love, Jack Simmons
Part 2: Tribal Discourse
Chapter 5: The Social Justice Discourse Ethics, Robert Gressis
Chapter 6: Dealing with the Devil, Stacy Ulbig
Chapter 7: From “Post-Racial America” to #BlackLivesMatter: Rethinking Race for the Twenty-first Century, Elizabeth Butterfield
Part 3: The Pandemic
Chapter 8: Lessons From the Death Zone: What Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air Can Teach Us About the COVID-19 Pandemic and Why We May Be Doomed to Repeat It, Leigh E. Rich
Chapter 9: Strategic Discourse in the Time of the Coronavirus, Robert Gressis
