Why Is David Brooks Declining Civic Institutions?

David Brooks, a well known writer for the New York Times, brought a new question to light about a very important topic in today's American society: “why has there been a decline in the number of civic institutions?”. This question was brought up when Brooks compared the recent fires in California to the famous forest fire in 1910 called the “Big Burn” which destroyed over three million acres throughout Montana, Idaho, and Washington. Brooks, after comparing the present US to the one over a hundred years ago, noticed something. He noticed that the number of civic institutions from back in the early twentieth century had decreased. He then provides many reasons for this decline, such as: political polarization, church's less impact, and the occurrence of general fragmentation and isolation.
Brooks’s purpose for this article was to inform the
Brooks does this by using a very organized syntax structure with strong diction, which separates the different topics of the article from one another. Brooks also uses ethos to prove his argument of declining civic institutions and to give context for his article.
This article also impacts the younger generations as they are growing up in this world with less civic institutions. Also, as the newer generations will impact the future, it is up to them to create institutions to help our world.
Throughout the article, Brooks uses syntax that is a organized to help guide the reader through the article and help separate the purposes from one another in the article. When Brooks starts off the article, he provides a hook that uses short sentences that are meant to intrigue the reader. These short sentences, with the use of strong verbs like “fighting”,“explode”, and “disappears”,