American politics is in a state of crisis but it is not clear why. Nor do we know what to do about it. Reinhold Niebuhr helps us understand what is wrong with our politics and research into the workings of the brain confirms his analysis. Call it sin or motivated reasoning and confirmation bias, the bottom line is that all of us are what Niebuhr calls "Children of Light." We are all vain and self-righteous about our beliefs and values, and far too quick to reject any information that goes against them. The unprecedented rise of talk radio and cable news helps to account for why things are so bad. We all want to hear that our group is smarter and more moral than others. To restore a democracy that functions, we need to understand ourselves better and develop the humility that such knowledge should engender.

American politics is in a state of crisis but it is not clear why. Nor do we know what to do about it. Reinhold Niebuhr helps us understand what is wrong with our politics and research into the workings of the brain confirms his analysis. Call it sin or motivated reasoning and confirmation bias, the bottom line is that all of us are what Niebuhr calls "Children of Light." We are all vain and self-righteous about our beliefs and values, and far too quick to reject any information that goes against them. The unprecedented rise of talk radio and cable news helps to account for why things are so bad. We all want to hear that our group is smarter and more moral than others. To restore a democracy that functions, we need to understand ourselves better and develop the humility that such knowledge should engender.

Even in the midst of an economic boom, most Americans would agree that all is not right in our polity. Our civic institutions are in bad shape, many argue, and we are growing ever more cynical and disconnected from our leaders and from one another.
In response to this bleak assessment, advocates of "civil society" argue that our society's predicament centers on the decline of our local institutions and that if we are to restore a more civic-minded society we must work to rejuvenate them. Christopher Beem argues that while this goal is worthwhile, simply restoring local institutions will not solve the problem; a civil society also needs politics and government to provide a sense of shared values and ideas.
This timely book seeks to correct a movement that is all too willing to undervalue or dismiss the role of politics in cultivating a moral society. More than this, "The Necessity of Politics" calls for a more developed sense of what the state is for, what our politics ought to be about, and of how state and civil society are both necessary to fashion and sustain a moral commonwealth.