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There's a generation of people I think without a strong connection to family, to religion, to civic duty. They have a real disassociation from the problems of the world.

I do think there is this danger that our society has made its peace with decline. I'd like to jolt them out of their complacency a little bit.

I really do think the things that make our society what it is are under threat. It should be about everyone having the potential to be what they're going to be.

I am concerned with only one thing, the moral and social conditions of my generation.

There is a central flaw in contemporary culture and a corresponding and related inability to address it. Society seems somehow unable to adequately help or protect itself. Normal citizens feel powerless, isolated and disturbed.

In too many communities, too many young men of color are left behind and seen only as objects of fear. Through initiatives like My Brother's Keeper, I'm personally committed to changing both perception and reality.

How should we begin to make amends for raising a generation obsessed with the pursuit of material wealth and indifferent to so much else?

I had become increasingly concerned in recent years about the lack of civics education in our nation's schools. In recent years, the schools have stopped teaching it. And it's unfortunate.

There is this absurd assumption that the revitalisation of the public sphere is always a good thing. I think people tend to confuse 'civic' and 'civil,' and they believe that everything that is done by citizens is necessarily a good thing because you build a network, an association.

One of the most destructive things that's happening in modern society is that we are losing our sense of the bonds that bind people together - which can lead to nightmares of social collapse.