Publishers have contempt for readers, thus Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone becomes Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone . This is the bane of America. The failure is of culture-mongers to respect the vast millions of smart people out there. You hear in Lewis Lapham's tone a deep raising of his and his readers' self-esteem at the expense of a rather badly educated but not stupid public. That's not gentlemanly behaviour, even if you are an elitist republican pretending to be a democrat.
Deregulation means the quest for the lowest possible common denominator.
Liberal economics and orthodox politics produce a very dysfunctional voter. There are, as I kept saying on that panel, more of us than there are of them. Sturgeon the next. Horses are said to fear people, because they believe we are bigger than them. Readers seem to have much the same impression of academics and critics.