Ted V. McAllister

Localism in the Mass Age

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“For over 30 years we have heard lamentations from across the political spectrum about the decay of community. Most sound quaint now, for we have lost so much more than community. We’ve lost contact with reality as we move through an environment of abstractions and, worse yet, appeals for even more unreal abstractions. Even our most “real” and tangible institution, family, has come perilously close to being little more than an emotionally charged set of freely chosen and temporary affections bound only by fragile allegiances. Localism in the Mass Age is not just about local communities, but about the local context in which real things are either made or discovered. Localism isn’t a political creed or a reactionary abstraction: it is an affirmation of the most human of things, in all their messy and colorful expressions. This collection of essays is about real things, including human needs, and ought to be the starting place for our national conversation of rebuilding a nation of free republics. Free republics are constructed of gnarled oak, not Formica uniformity and clean simplicity. Gnarled oaks may be found locally, the individualized products of real life situated in a real place. A better future is found here.”