This is CBS I in the World. I'm John Batchel.

It is the summer of 1968, the summer of love.

I was a young man, and I reflect now.

At the time, it seemed like just growing up.

However, these many decades later, in the winter of 25, it is a way of characterizing

extreme individualism. I don't use the word radical, just extreme, atomized culture. And I learn this

from a new essay by Richard Reins. She is the editor-in-chief of Civitas Outlook, the University of Texas,

in Austin, Texas. The extremes of individual behavior we now have around us, if I follow the

argument, in the extremes of anger and opposition, as if you want to destroy your opponent,

as if the only thing you can do is show up for what 1984 would call a hate rally.

And that is not obvious in 1968 that we come to this.

However, Richard, a very good evening to you.

What is in it 68 that we now understand was dangerous for us?

Because the idea of civic communion begins and ends with identifying what the problem is.

Good evening to you.

Good evening to you, John. Thank you for having me on.

So I wrote this essay coming out of a great deal of study of a French, what we might think of as a conservative liberal author named Pierre Madotte,

who has turned his focus on the

problems facing European nation states, has they have developed over the last 40 years,

and coming out of also the Cold War. And thinking about a politics that is, on the one hand,

incredibly egalitarian, incredibly focused on welfare state rights, income guarantees, all manner of things being provided for you by the state.

On the other hand, a culture of individualism.

...