No Abiding City

Digby Anderson

THE collapse of Communism and the rediscovery of the market both teach a more general lesson that has not been much noticed. It is quite simple: the clock can be turned back. It is not easy, but it can be done. This is very important, because there are a lot of people who do not believe that clocks can be turned back. Confront them with some well-argued suggestion for remoralizing society with “Victorian values,” redeploying old-fashioned stigmas such as shame or embarrassment, or rediscovering the socially cohesive effects of good manners, and they will smile as if sympathetically, humor you with a few subjunctives about what might be nice if it were possible, then conclude as if it ended all discussion that clocks cannot be turned back.

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Digby Anderson

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Digby Anderson

THE collapse of Communism and the rediscovery of the market both teach a more general lesson that has not been much noticed. It is quite simple: the clock can be turned back. It is not easy, but it can be done. This is very important, because there are a lot of people who do not believe that clocks can be turned back. Confront them with some well-argued suggestion for remoralizing society with “Victorian values,” redeploying old-fashioned stigmas such as shame or embarrassment, or rediscovering the socially cohesive effects of good manners, and they will smile as if sympathetically, humor you with a few subjunctives about what might be nice if it were possible, then conclude as if it ended all discussion that clocks cannot be turned back.