jimsleeper.com

This website is a buffet or smorgasbord of civic republican “dishes” — columns, essays, podcasts, interviews, and videos that you can sample. Whenever you’re tempted, dig in.

Each “meal,” or thematic section — “What is Civic Republicanism?”, “Why Foreign Policy Isn’t so ‘Foreign’ Anymore,” “Why a Skin Color Isn’t a Culture,” and eleven others here below — opens with an appetizer, prepared in 2022, followed by a menu of recent and not-so-recent entrees on that theme.

Some things haven’t been swept away and probably won’t be: Greed, power lust, and yearnings to belong to tribes, faith communities, or herds. All these antedated capitalism and post-modernism by millennia, and they’ll outlast them: Tyrants, fanatics, and rogues will rush into abysses opening at our feet and in our hearts. Stressed, dispossessed people will follow them, believing — craving — lies about who to blame and who to trust.

But others of us will walk forward on a “left” foot of public provision and a “right” one of individual autonomy and responsibility to others, and some of us will keep looking for America with urgency and depth. Sample here what I’ve looked for and found. The chef is at jimsleep@aol.com.