Renewing America's Civic Compact addresses the chief challenges and principal tensions in the operation of our civil society in order to consider possible paths forward. The meritocracy, multiculturalism, issues of race, technology, and populist nationalism in American democracy today are some of the issues that have created more tensions to American public life. Chapters address the condition of civil conversation within the university and across American society. This 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.
Carol McNamara is the senior director of the Center for Constitutional Design at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. Trevor Shelley is Associate Director of Graduate Studies and Instructor at the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University
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
