Renewing America’s Civic Compact

The essays in this volume address the chief challenges and principal tensions in the operation of our civil society in order to consider possible paths forward. It will be of interest to scholars of American history and politics, to thoughtful citizens and leaders facing present challenges, and to students and future Americans confronting the ongoing challenges of our times.

The essays in this volume address the chief challenges and principal tensions in the operation of our civil society in order to consider possible paths forward. Discussion opens with a diagnostic analysis of what presently ails American public life and then turns to address various tensions. These include meritocracy, multiculturalism, issues of race, technology, and populist nationalism in American democracy today. A number of authors address the condition of civil conversation within the university and across American society. The collection then engages debates over the continued relevance and durability of liberal ideas and institutions; whether we have accessible means and resources to channel digital technology more fruitfully for the sake of human achievement and well-being; and how some have endeavored to revitalize the American civic vocation through both scholarly and practical education. Finally, the volume closes with a call to restore civic friendship, properly understood, as the foundation for renewing America’s civic compact.

Introduction: Carol McNamara and Trevor Shelley

Part I: Diagnosis of the American Malady

Chapter 1: We All Live on Campus Now: Andrew Sullivan

Chapter 2: The Constitution of Knowledge: Jonathan Rauch

Chapter 3: Renewing Civic Education: How to Restore Strategic Competence and Confidence: H.R. McMaster

Part II: Meritocracy, Racial Challenges, and the Populist Response

Chapter 4: Meritocracy, Populism and Worker Power: Michael Lind

Chapter 5: The Inescapable Meritocracy: Rita Koganzon

Chapter 6 Systemic Racism: Defining Terms and Evaluating Evidence: Lara Bazelon

Chapter 7: On the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America: Glenn Loury

Part III: The Case for Liberal Ideas and Institutions

Chapter 8: The Three Pillars of Liberalism: Michael Zuckert

Chapter 9: Truth and Virtue in the Founders’ Liberalism: C. Bradley Thompson

Chapter 10: Conservative Democracy Rightly and Wrongly Understood: Daniel Mahoney

Part IV: A Civic Compact for Our Digital Age

Chapter 11: Beyond Information Idolatry: A Civic Compact for a Technoscientific Age: J. Benjamin Hurlbut

Chapter 12: Social Media and The Prestige Economy Trap: Buying Allies, Losing Friends, and the Audience Effect: Pamela Paresky

Chapter 13: Steamboat or Showboat? Space, Wealth, and the American Way: Charles Rubin

Part V: Cultivating Our Civic Vocation and Contributing to the Common Good

Chapter 14: Empowering the Rising Generation to Overcome the Victimhood Narrative: Ian Rowe

Chapter 15: Civics at Work: Defending Democratic Institutions: Suzanne Spaulding

Part VI: Civic Friendship

Chapter 16: Civic Friendship: Lessons from Aristotle: Michael Pakaluk

Chapter 17: Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln: Neighborly Citizens of a Common Country: Diana Schaub

Chapter 18: How Civic Friendship is a Fact not an Ideal, and How it Explains Our Present Moment: Paul Ludwig