Introducing Civic Fields
An outpost on the Internet for those looking for something other than politics “as is”
Dear Friends,
I am starting a Substack newsletter. It’s called Civic Fields. It’s my little attempt to take what’s now been a quarter century of writing, teaching, and thinking about American public culture and history — mostly at the University of Illinois — to fight the arsonists in power, both on the right and the left, that have been torching our public discourse and undermining public life. Perhaps I can help contribute to better ways.
This is an invitation to join me by subscribing.
In the future, Civic Fields may grow into more than a newsletter, but this is a start. My plan is to write weekly, excepting needed vacations or trips away for work. At least for the next year.
I have been thinking about doing this for a long time, but, I’ll admit it, the shift in public culture since Trump 2.0 took office got me thinking that it is time for me to start writing for a broader audience. For those alarmed or discouraged by the news out of Washington, my concern at Civic Fields is to suggest some different emotional, intellectual, and political patterns. For those who are pleased by what’s going on, my concern will be to add nuance and temper the enthusiasm. Be careful what you wish for.
When Trump was first elected to the presidency in 2016, national politics lit up with “The Resistance.” What was The Resistance? It began as a form of popular politics. The Women’s March on Washington was organized as a traditional political show of strength and solidarity. Soon after, upon Trump’s “Muslim Ban,” people gathered at airports, urban centers, and other sites all across the country to protest Trump’s targeting of a single religious group for political purposes.
So much for The Resistance. It took no more than a few weeks for it to become just another form of media content, wherein Rachel Maddow became a kind of figurehead and Twitter (remember Twitter?) the national bathroom wall on which The Resistance chronicled its outrage minute-by-minute in chunks of 140 characters or less. Popular politics devolved into another form of performative politics: The Resistance 2.0.
Today, amid Trump 2.0, The Resistance 2.0 may be enjoying a small renaissance, as the “Trump-bump” comes in to save the dismal ratings of cable news and re-ignite certain channels in social media. But it’s clear that it will be but a shadow of its old outraged self. As some astute observers have been reminding us, Trump and the Trumpian Right has decisively won the attention game, and Trump World, Inc. is not likely to relent anytime soon.
If Trump understands one thing, it's the attention economy. And if American national politics runs on one thing, its attention. Donations to the Harris campaign pummeled Trump during most of the election. But attention won the day. In the world of digital media, it takes a certain kind of casual yet performative charisma — call it “bravado” — to win the attention game. And there’s no resisting Trump here, for every post of outrage just pours water on his giant grease fire.
In the attention economy, political power grows as leaders become more paternal and we ourselves more infantile. For politics in the attention economy depends not on policy or ideology (during the campaign, Harris, like Trump, became wildly non-ideological), but on more basic fears, anxieties, frustrations, hopes, and aspirations. Such emotions, as you and I experience them, can be, and indeed often are rational — there are reasons we are afraid, anxious, or hopeful. But their rationality has no real way of being expressed beneath the tyranny of the attention economy. We are reduced, politically speaking, to something like wordless infants crying for attention.
For regular folk, if we attend to national politics at all, the attention economy forces us into the self-work of self-regulating. We work to make ourselves feel better (or worse) about the world, the country, and ourselves. And the attention economy is there to help! To deal with our feelings, it offers us Objects of Attachment: Apps, Screens, Personalities, Brands, Cliches, Bumper Stickers, and Weed (lots of Weed).
The real challenge, however, is akin to breaking with the entrenched attachment patterns of a dysfunctional family. It's about leaving the house of the attention economy and stepping out into the world as the very adults we, in fact, are.
This is the spirit that animates Civic Fields. This is a “grown-up” space. I say that as a way of honoring who you are rather than somehow being snarky. There is so much more to the world, and indeed to the political world, than the attention economy, and Civic Fields is here to explore that world.
The “Civic” encompasses all those ordinary and everyday public places, institutions, and practices that operate in relationship to, but somewhat autonomously from, national and state politics: schools, local shops, sidewalks, parks, pizza joints, parades, protests, neighborhood parties — the list goes on. The “Civic” is the space of neighborliness, community, cooperation, interaction, and some forms of activism. To do the “Civic” well, a sufficient number of people need the virtue of good will, rudimentary diplomatic and neighborly skills, and a sufficient sense of safety and belonging.
The basic premise of Civic Fields is that the Civic is “resistance,” and a much better form of resistance than anything Twitter or Rachel Maddow ever offered. And better for us, too. For what we really need to Resist is not only Trump per se, but the attention economy he, Rachel Maddow, Elon Musk, and many more represent.
I still teach Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave.” (If you don’t know it, a good synopsis can be found here.) While I have problems with the moral of the story, I very much appreciate the metaphor and the critical tasks it suggests. In a political context where getting pulled into the Cave is a clear and ever-present danger, two tasks are necessary: seeing how the Cave itself works, and seeing what’s outside the Cave. These are the broad tasks of Civic Fields.
What business do I have standing in the shoes of Plato? If someone puts it that way, none. But because of what I teach and write about in my academic life, I do spend an above-average amount of time thinking, reading, and studying these things. Because I am a midwesterner taught and trained at public universities and religious schools, I would also like to think I have a different take on things than coastal thinkers. And because I am Christian — though I have begun to hesitate to use that word when Trump, the oligarchs, and nationalists so casually use it — I think I have some responsibility, if you will, to begin to give out some of what I’ve been taking in for so long.
What can you expect from Civic Fields? Here’s a preview of some of the topics I hope to write on this year, or invite others to write about:
Join or Die: Robert Putnam on Civic Health
What is Civic Education Anyway?
Civil Religion and Its Critics
Elites and the Mob: Hannah Arendt on Totalitarianism
The Broken Middle: Gillian Rose on Why We Need to Keep Trying
The Courage of Alasdair MacIntyre
What is “Liberalism” and Do We Really Need It?
The Outpost: Resistance and Empire
The Lost Battle for White Culture
What is “Public Culture”?
And more . . .
Who is this for? I wrote a book that came out five years ago called Politics for Everybody, so I guess I’d start with “everybody.” But I think the better way to put it is in terms of the audience I imagine. It’s definitely not a strictly academic audience–that’s what journal articles are for. Rather, it’s for so many people I know or have met: thoughtful and concerned but more than a little bit exhausted and disoriented with politics “as is.” I hope to provide here a space for orienting, grounding, germinating, and seeing anew, or at least askew.
We are clearly living in a time of extraordinary change. Some are responding by celebrating, others by freaking out, and others by retreating into protective cynical bubbles. To me, this is a time for sowing without any expectations of immediate fruit. I have steered clear of social media my whole life and am, frankly, quite uncomfortable entering even the relatively sane Substack space. Nevertheless, Civic Fields seems to be calling me. If you want to join in, great. If not, no hurt feelings. I am going to go on scattering.
Before long,
-Ned
In. And thank you.
Ned, I'm looking forward to reading. Thanks for launching this!