Intellectuals and Their America

Last fall, we invited a number of prominent American intellectuals who are not editors of Dissent to participate in a forum about the culture and politics of our country. It seems a good time for such a discussion. Both U.S. politics and culture are arenas of great tension—whether the strains portend national renewal, decline, or more of the same. Conservatives no longer dominate U.S. politics, but a new liberal era has not yet begun; digital technology has altered the ways most Americans inform and entertain themselves and communicate with others, but many worry that it also trivializes all forms of expression; for the first time, capitalism has become an entirely global system, but its fruits are, as always, distributed unequally, in the United States as well as abroad.