This chapter of the Good Faith podcast explores the importance of institutions in preserving and passing on traditions. The hosts discuss the role of institutions in shaping our interactions and providing us with roles and shared purposes. They also delve into the consequences of institutional breakdown, such as loss of trust and anxiety.
In the diagnosis of the epidemic of anxiety sweeping through society, the examination has tended to focus on individual risk factors or macro-social trends (like social media and smartphone adoption among teens). But this misses something going on at the intermediary level between individuals and mass society: the state of the institutions that shape so much of our daily life. Curtis is joined by renowned scholar Yuval Levin in exploring the concept of “the anxious institution.” They make the case that institutions both externally cause and internally experience anxiety in fascinating and important ways.