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Events • May 15, 2026 

# *Summer of Our Discontent: The Age of Certainty and the Demise of Discourse*

*The Summer of Our Discontent* confronts the breakdown of civility in American society. Civil discourse has given way to identitarianism, altering our media, education, policing, and the ambient language and culture we use to make sense of our lives. In his book, Thomas Chatterton Williams chronicles the transformation of social justice activism following the summer of 2020. He explores how a culture of racial identitarianism undermines individual agency and empowerment.

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). 

##### Featuring 

![Thomas Chatterton Williams-cropped](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2026-04/Thomas%20Chatterton%20Williams-cropped.jpg?itok=ZtrZ8VMX) 

##### Thomas Chatterton Williams 

Staff Writer, *The Atlantic*; Nonresident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute

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](https://x.com/thomaschattwill) 

[![ErecSmith-cropped.jpg](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2023-02/ErecSmith-cropped.jpg?itok=p8wlcACq)](/people/erec-smith) 

##### [Erec Smith](/people/erec-smith)

Research Fellow, Cato Institute, and Cofounder, Free Black Thought

[ 

](https://x.com/Rhetors_of_York)