“Look, I don’t expect everyone to be well versed in Sino-American relations or the history of the Great Leap Forward. I recognize that those are specialized areas of interest, but whatever happened to our shared references and understandings? How can we be a polis when 95 percent of us would rather watch aging housewives bicker on TV than express a well-formed opinion of our own? When I go to a failing strip club in New Orleans and say that I’m at Ozymandias’s pleasure palace, I want everyone to laugh and get depressed.”