[Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign I'm Heather Marie montia and you're watching PBS books thank you for joining us PBS books is pleased to host a conversation with honorable Crosby Kemper the director of The Institute of Museum and Library services and Scholars Danielle Allen and Yuval Levin to celebrate America 250 through stories of diverse cultural heritage PBS books is partnering with the Institute of Museum and Library Services a federal government cultural Grant making agency to produce visions of America all stories all people all places a digital first series of videos and conversations that explore our nation with the renewed interest in the places people and stories that have contributed to the America we live in today today's conversation is the second in a series of three virtual conversations visions of America this series provides an opportunity for Americans to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our nation's founding beginning in Fall 2023 imls director Crosby Kemper will lead a video tour through three lesser-known historical sites that symbolize an aspect of the spirit of America's Independence each episode includes notable historians and authors who will share the tales and themes that reverberate inside the walls of these institutions viewers will explore the cities these organizations call home to Showcase what makes each of these communities so important to America's identity well last month as we launched this series Crosby and I sat down and discussed the importance of the Institute of Museum and Library Services the important role that museums and libraries play in their communities and America 250. well tonight building upon that conversation will explore America's founding documents the importance of civics education and understanding citizenship and what it means to be an American well I'd like to reintroduce Crosby Kemper Crosby Kemper is the sixth director of The Institute of Museum and Library Services he was commissioned by the White House on January 24 2020 following his confirmation by the United States Senate imls an independent government agency is the primary source of federal support for the nation's museums and libraries Crosby is a dedicated advocate for education and learning for people of all ages and backgrounds he comes to imls from the Kansas City Public Library where he was a director for more than 15 years he established a library as one of the city's leading cultural destinations and a hub of community engagement during his tenure the Kansas City Public Library received multiple Awards including the imls national medal for Museum and Library service is in 2008.

Crosby's career began in banking he most recently served as CEO of UMB Financial Corporation he holds a bachelor's degree in history from Yale University it is my extraordinary pleasure to welcome in Crosby Kemper to moderate this conversation and introduce our featured guests I am really honored with our two guests today as we we're preparing for three years away the big day July 4th 2026. the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the birth of uh of our nation uh and and today in conversation we've got two of our leading public philosophers Daniel Allen is the content professor at Harvard the director of the Safra Center for ethics at Harvard Kennedy School uh co-chair of the commission on the practice of democracy of the American Academy of Arts and Science and a co-author of their uh publication on uh the future of uh and resilience of democracy uh our common purpose and the author of an extraordinary book A book that is a guidepost for for us in our work uh going towards the 250th anniversary called our declaration a reading of the Declaration of Independence uh with focus on equality and contemporary importance of the Declaration and you've all live in founding editor of national Affairs director of social cultural and constitutional Affairs at the American Enterprise Institute author of the great debate about how Edmund Burke and Thomas Payne created the right and left that we have today and two important books about our Civic infrastructure are the Civ the state of our Civic Nation the fractured Republic and time to build uh Yuval and Danielle welcome thank you Crosby it's great to be here with you thanks very much thank you so much I want to begin with a statement from our declaration by Danielle the Declaration matters because it helps us see that we cannot have freedom without equality and you've all statement in the fractured Republic our society is held together not only by the principles of equality and freedom but also by the shared triumphs and tragedies of American life and and by the experience of unity among diversity can you can you each talk a little bit about Freedom inequality and the tensions creative we hope and and uh what it's about today in America Daniel well maybe I'll guess I'll jump in since you've all added further Concepts on top of Freedom inequality so I can provide a base and then he can provide the upper layer um but but Crosby first of all thank you so much for your work leading MLS and for your profound recognition of the importance of the 250th anniversary it's really terrific to have the chance to to have this conversation so lots of folks think that there's a tension between freedom and equality when you look at the tradition of political philosophy over centuries what you actually see is a a recognition that self-government is the project of free and equal citizens why is that the case well we all want to be free from Domination by others we want to be collectively free from Domination by outside societies and achieving freedom for all of us requires that we all be equally empowered in relationship to each other so freedom and equality are like you know they work together hand in glove as the basic elements of self-government evolved the sharing of this story of freedom and equality is not always equally shared it's not only and you mentioned the triumphs and tragedies and we we all try and share in the triumphs but we're not always all sharing in the tragedies right yeah thank you very much Crosby and really thank you for the opportunity for this conversation I I I'm enormously grateful for it and I should say I've been learning from Danielle now for a long time and and benefiting from her leadership in all kinds of ways I was on the commission that you mentioned that producer reported I'd really recommend to all of you um which was led by Danielle but where I'd really started is actually with her book as as she did because I think that the the extraordinary point that it begins with that it isn't really possible for us to think about freedom in the way in which we mean it unless we do begin from equality um a a freedom that is rooted in uh some people benefiting and others not doesn't feel to us as Americans like Freedom or at least it shouldn't um and isn't what we mean by Freedom so that for us freedom really does mean free and equal citizens enjoying the benefits of Freedom together in an equal way I would add to that that the experience of living in that way and of struggling for equal Freedom uh and of struggling against the obstacles both to freedom and maybe especially to equality through American history um is an absolutely integral part of what it is that we celebrate or Mark when we mark an important anniversary like the one that's coming up I think the United States is not a new country anymore we're not just uh we're not just formed we're not just founded we get to benefit from an extraordinary tradition but we also have to own that tradition in all of its various ways I think that the the the work we do as Americans to get to the point where we speak about our country in the in terms of we in the terms of that first word of the Constitution We the People um is a work of taking ownership of a political tradition um good and bad we can say you know we went to the moon but we also have to say we uh enslaved Millions for two centuries both of those things are true of us even though I didn't go to the moon and you know none of us was involved in uh in slavery as an institution personally we as a society to the extent that we can take ownership of our past and future have to acknowledge that that is all of who we are and here I really my my guide on this front is Abraham Lincoln I think that Lincoln understood and came to understand in the darkest moment of his own uh of his own Journey that there's no way to speak to people's deepest sense of national commitment without speaking to memory as a young man he had thought that we could put aside passion and think only through reason to get to a kind of law-abiding freedom-loving American citizenship but by the time he was president if you look at the end of his first inaugural he knew that it was really those Mystic chords of memory that hold us together and that it's impossible to defeat the worst dangers of passion in public life without appealing to Common memory and so to me thinking about the 250th anniversary of the Declaration certainly we have to first and foremost think about the ideals the principles that are laid out at the beginning of that extraordinary document and we have to see them through the lens of our common experience so that we can continue to build that experience and to do it together and so Danielle at one point in our common purpose you say that the authors you are the author are common purpose of the American Academy that we are yearning to believe again in the American story and and you've always given us an outline of that American story through Lincoln's Lincoln's words and eyes um is that this is that the story are we able to do the story where our shared ideals which certainly Lincoln held up but also Lincoln in the second inaugural of course thought it might be civil war was God's Vengeance on on us in some in some way what which story are are we telling is it is the is that the story we're able to tell the shared ideals and the shared tragedies well I think we must tell the story of the shared ideals and the shared tragedies but in truth I think our greatest struggle at the moment really honestly turns around the word again and I'm sure you've picked this up in so many conversations um that the notion that there's a thing that we can do again um really quickly brings forward the view from many that we've actually never managed to achieve a shared story as of yet um so that there were many who always believed but then there were others who didn't believe you even can consider Frederick Douglass his famous speech what is the Fourth of July to a negro there he is embracing endorsing the ideals of the founding in many ways the principle of equality but he's also expressing a very profound sense of alienation from the political institutions as they existed so the fact of the matter is that here when we sit looking at the 250th in the year 2026 we are on a threshold we are entering into a new period of time whereas the goal now is that you know for the first time can we all believe and can we in fact account for our history understand it connect to what is valuable in it connect to those ideals but do that as a new people in the 21st century ready to tell a story for us in the present Douglas of course is interesting because it early in his career after he escaped from slavery and became a a noted orator uh for for the Abolitionist Movement um he he shared Garrison's view of the Constitution that that it in fact was an evil and it needed to be torn down and he gradually came to believe that the constitution in fact did enshrine our our ideals in fact was meant to be an anti-slavery uh document uh or at least to encourage the ending of slavery and and and so there was growth in his his view view of that I I wonder if both of you have a notion of of how at the local level um where we are we're spending a lot of time tearing down monuments some of which certainly believed to be torn down some of which might be better better off interpreted rather than torn down but um are we able to to tell this story at the at the local level are we able to to use you know what tocqueville saw as our ability to associate at the local level that our our ability to solve problems at the local level a level of trust at the local level that we may not share at that at the national level is that a possibility evolved well I do think that it's it's still the case that there is more trust among Americans at the local and the interpersonal level than we find in the in the kind of abstract uh of our national politics uh tocqueville offers this guidance but also offers some some caution tocqueville was very skeptical that the American people could be capable of national memory um one of the ways in which he is critical of us is that he says Americans tend not to keep records tend not to keep track we just move forward and uh you know continually move west and leave behind he has this wonderful image of the leaves of Sybil um I I think that in some ways that's still true but that the kind of work that you've done uh throughout your career is precisely the work of memory at the local level and I do think it's extremely important for us to help people understand how the national story is also in in various ways a local story and how people like them were involved in those Great Moments and in those terrible moments again to take ownership to to help us understand our society in terms of a we um and I I do think it's very important to recognize as Daniel says that the point is not to recover some golden age that we did this right once but now we're doing it wrong but rather to see that there is a way to do this right that could be available to us as a as a way of understanding our own tradition as a way of understanding those documents as a way of understanding the promise of America it has not been fully realized and that it is up to us you realize it more fully um to learn yes from what was done well in the past but also to see what could be done better I think that's certainly true as much at the local level uh as at the national level and you know ultimately a lot of our political life a lot of our Civic life a lot of what it means to be engaged has to happen locally National engagement can be very abstract and indirect it can be a way of expressing opinion but Civic life is not just about expressing opinions it's about showing up it's about being there it's about taking part uh in some shared project and certainly in order to do that we've got to recognize that we are rooted in particular places in real communities where people know our name and where if we were missing it would be noticed um I I do think we've got to recover a capacity uh for that kind of political life and you know if the kind of uh if the nice things tocqueville says about American Association the 19th century can help us get there that's great um I don't think we should imagine that what we're doing is recovering a golden age of Association I'm not so sure that that's what the 1830s really were like for most Americans but I think that what we're doing is building on the the dream that's always powered the American story and building out of the new and building on it for the future that's what an anniversary like this ought to direct us to do well add something to that I mean you've referenced the commission work um Crosby that we did and this was a years-long project to lay out a vision of blueprint for how we could really renovate our institutions in our civil society for healthy democracy in the 21st century as a part of that work we spent a lot of time in listening sessions in communities all over the country these were really powerful experiences and one of the things that came out most forcefully from this was just how all across America everybody had stories to tell about honestly a tragedy something terrible that had happened in their Community a fire or a hurricane or another kind of of disaster and the way in which people turned out for each other neighbors who knew each other but neighbors who didn't know each other as well and so I think that really does speak to the question we have such a fractious National environment yet at the local levels of time and again people are there for each other they've got each other's back and I do think it is very valuable for us to be able to tap into that experience directly and draw a link between that experience and the notion of what it means for us to be committed to each other in this bigger broader abstract thing we call constitutional democracy great we've got each other's back that's the idea right and it it seems to me part of our problem in the country is seeing each other in terms of group identities um and uh and and Tokyo talks about the the atomization of individualism but at the same time uh at the local level at the neighborhood level the family level he talks about the importance of family and religion uh in in the America of the 18 1830s um and we still have a lot of that and we certainly have that what you've just said I think Danielle that the idea of the neighborhood and and the the idea of the group at the local level is very different than the idea of the group at the national level uh identity at the local level you know we're all Kansas citians or baltimoreans or washingtonians well Washington may not be the best example of this but um and and uh and and we have shared local pride and it's it's easier to see our history as a joint activity at the local level sometimes than it is at the at the national level yeah I mean it's complicated we all have so many beautiful affiliations and sources of identity in all honesty I like to talk to young people about civic identity and the notion that to be a citizen is about connecting to a set of practices and habits they depend on these ideals of freedom and equality they depend on Norms like Mutual forbearance and mutual respect that civic identity depends on choosing a role in our institutions maybe you're a voter maybe you're running for office maybe you're serving on a jury and so forth and then we all have to have a kind of deep and authentic commitment to that that Civic role and that commitment comes from all the different things that flow into our backgrounds family background religion culture racial identity in some cases I do have a strong sense of connection to the African-American tradition in the country we all have a lot of different sources of our identity and the work to do is to kind of hook that up to a civic identity and and so um the notion of the our civic identity depends to some extent on the notion of uh shared knowledge and and one of the things that is true that I think you've both talked about uh uh yeah and in this lead up to not only the 250th anniversary but in in the polarization of our our country what we're all trying to do about that our Civic knowledge has declined so much there was recently A A Civics test the Civics and history tests of the national assessment of educational Pro uh progress which showed no progress which in fact showed for the first time in 25 years there was a decline at the eighth grade level uh in uh in our children's knowledge of American History American government and I wonder if you could both address that how how we achieve Civic the Civic knowledge would which at some point has to be a core of our ability to have these Mutual conversations we have to have some shared understanding of what the country is what those ideals which we may not have lived up to but what are those ideals that we're trying to live up to you know I think that that that concept of of core knowledge of what it takes to be a citizen is very important to citizenship in a republic um citizenship in our kind of society is not passive it's active and it can be a very high context thing you've got to know what to do where to go how things happen What kinds of roles are available to you how you play those roles a lot of times that kind of knowledge comes out of experience but it also has to come out of teaching and learning um learning history learning to understand the structure the shape of our government I do always warn people away from thinking that Civic knowledge is declined I don't know that we really know that that's quite right um I'm not sure it's at all easy to say that Americans in the 19th century say on the whole uh knew a lot more about how the federal government works than Americans do today Americans broadly speaking are much more educated than they were um and so I it I I think that's not exactly the right way to ask the question the question is do Americans know what they need to know to be active citizens in ways that can help our country be stronger and I think the answer to that is no and I think the answer has to point us toward working harder in the direction of meaningful civic education I would say there's been a real Resurgence in the last few years in Practical efforts to give real meaning to that concept not just to talk about civic education but to think about what it would look like as a practical matter to build a real field around it so the teachers who are uh who are given the responsibility to teach young Americans about what it is to be a citizen have a better sense of exactly what it is that they're being asked to convey and of how they might do that it's a complicated time to do it American citizenship and history are are exceptionally controversial just now but I think it's also extremely important in this moment to help Americans see what can be a common foundation for life in our society the coming years need to be a period of resurgence of civic education and that's going to take more than just saying we need to teach people more history it's going to take real substantive work that can help us understand how to start those important conversations how to get Young Americans interested and excited about the the roles that they can have in helping this Society be stronger I would say that we I I have more reason for Hope on that front now than 10 years ago because there are now a lot of organizations a lot of people on all sides of our politics getting interested in what that question exactly demands of us and how to think about it and so on that one front I do think there's Reason for Hope but there is a lot of work to do and then you know you're doing this work the Reason for Hope is that uh is that well so as you've all I mean so so many people are he's right I mean it gives me hope too I actually feel much more optimistic about our prospects for civic education now than I did a decade ago and it really is a big National community of people across the political Spectrum who have linked arms and said look you know we've got a responsibility from one generation to the next to achieve succession it's just think of it that sort of directly for those of us who are older you know above the mid-century line you know we have a job of ensuring that younger folks have a sense a strong sense of connection to this extraordinary opportunity for self-government yes we have huge challenges to swim out but that's precise what self-government is for is for giving us the chance to pitch in and surmount those challenges so I do feel that strong sense of motivation and that's really what we needed because the truth is what has blocked us from giving young people the civic education they need has been our own division among adults our own polarization our own you know ideological arguments so the fact that you know our cohort is able to link arms across different points of view different viewpoints and political positions and say look we've got to do this work together I believe that's a really critical turning point and I think we've achieved it there's more work to do we've got to build a bigger and bigger Coalition but the heart of it is there and I believe we can grow from there and you you both told me a lot of this is about are having the conversation the conversation that we're having right now having conversations at the local level and the national level in which we recognize each other's moral worth if you will uh and I mean the most important quality it seems to me is moral equality and we need we have a problem in this country right now with not recognizing each other's moral equality if you will and and and we need to convert we need conversations about that uh and and are we having those can we have those conversations I you know I think at the center of that kind of conversation there has to be a willingness to ask questions and consider a variety of answers to those kind of questions I think one reason why there's reason to be optimistic now about civic education is that we've come to a place where we think about what it needs to be in terms of the questions that have to be at its Center questions about what our country needs to be devoted to questions about the the the the the nature and character of our history and its triumphs and its tragedies those questions can lead to a variety of answers and look civic education can look different in different places that's okay as long as we are engaged as you say in that in that single conversation in a conversation that points Us in the direction of one another that helps us to engage with each other I would say that there is at the at the core of our kind of society there's an idea of unity that is maybe not self-evident it's Unity that doesn't look like agreeing with each other about everything that does doesn't look like thinking alike it's Unity that looks like acting together and very often acting together across lines of difference lines that don't go away when you act together you don't end up all uh in the same place on every issue but it is possible to act together even when we don't think alike I think that Insight really guides the the structure of the American system of government and the thinking behind our constitution it's behind the nature of our confidence that it is possible for a diverse Society to be one whole society with one vision of itself and one sense of purpose that doesn't mean that our diversity goes away or there are divisions and disagreements go away if that were what it took for a Unity then Unity would be hopeless and there really would be no chance but that's not what it takes what it takes is an ability to work together to address common problems to advance common projects to build a common future even as we remain different people as you say in different groups with different views that's not ever going to change I think recognizing that that kind of unity is possible is reachable for us is is within our grasp is what it takes to engage in the kind of conversations you talk about and I think Americans are hungry for that recognition now we've we've spent a lot of this Century so far the 21st century persuading ourselves that our country is impossible that what we're trying to achieve just can't be done that it's all falling apart and I just don't buy it I you know I'm an immigrant to this country I I think there are I think it's very important to recognize that things can fall apart in really profound and fundamental ways and that it could happen here too but that we have a lot of resources to work with in our society that we have a lot more Unity than we think and that we do have a capacity to work together act together across lines of difference convey that to the rising generation is absolutely crucial Because unless they see that then they will not see why they should have hope in the potential of this extraordinary country and it is vital that they do see it because the future depends on I'm Crosby Kemper the director of The Institute of Museum and Library services and you're watching PBS books I'm here with the public philosophers and award-winning authors Danielle Allen evolving and back to the conversation so uh the conversation uh that we're talking about that we need to have with each other I think we just had one I think we just had a really great uh uh example of this and you're both madisonians I think and uh we just had a compromise over our debt limit uh in which after after uh this compromise was was made everyone wanted to know who won and it seems to be both sides won a little bit and lost a little bit and the country won a reprieve uh a little bit but the real winner was James Madison uh who who created created the structure that you've just talked about evil um and Danielle has has written eloquently about in her article about why she loves the Constitution um and and it seems to be one of the things we're having a hard time doing is finding our way to compromise even though the Great American middle seems to most of the time be desirous of that um are we structurally able to do this I mean it's what Madison wanted to do you know it's one of the sort of great paradoxes of democracy is we talk about it as a reflection of the will of the people and that can encourage each of us to think that you know my will specifically my will is supposed to come out the other end of the pipeline of the political process the fact of the matter is of course that it should be a process of governance that yields compromises the thing that comes out Final End shouldn't actually look exactly like anybody's will so paradoxically self-governance the chance to steer our own lives privately and then to contribute to sharing the collective life of our society yield a result that will always be a little bit unmatched to our own personal fulsome views and it is recognizing that and accepting that which is at the core of democracy and then yes exactly those institutions are designed to help us take our many multiple individual wills and yield something that is steering the whole ship in a safe and healthy direction and you know I do think Madison won so speaking of that ceiling that said I also think that our structures are under an awful lot of pressure they have I will say uh in my view been captured um by the facts of how party primaries operate and the fact that very small base of the party can actually control the entire structure for both parties that's a fundamental problem we do need some redesign or I like to call it some renovation of our institutions so that we can hook all of our Wills back up to the process of things sort of pouring into the pipeline and then coming out at the very end not looking like how anybody put it in right and we we're we're kind of a 50 50 Nation politically And yet when each part of the one part of the 50 gets control of the house of Congress they they seem to think they they own it and the other side seem to think you know their their side and and and it's imposing of will uh it does seem to be uh our our problem at the moment um you know I think it's it's hard to learn to love a system that forces you to compromise and that's always been one of the challenges about the American system it is really there to frustrate everybody so that frustration is what the system working feels like I I very much agree that we're in a moment now when there's certainly frustration but the system is not producing the kinds of uh of of accommodational outcomes that we would like to see and I think part of the reason for that has had to do with a kind of underlying disagreement beneath the agreement we have that the system isn't working well uh we can all say congress isn't working the way we'd like but what is it failing to do I think a lot of people in both parties would say what it's failing to do is pass the legislation that I want and so they have tried to change the system in ways that will make that more likely uh including the primaries including various reforms of Congress which I think have been very counterproductive when we should say what the system is failing to do is facilitate cross partisan bargaining if that's what we saw then I think we would point in the direction of some rather different sorts of reforms uh not primaries but ways of thinking about how the internal diversity of both parties could work toward cross parties and compromises not a congress run by Party leaders but a Congress that operates in the middle layers where the Committees are and where members can engage with one another across the usual lines of difference it does take our recognizing I think this actually speaks to the need for civic education it takes our recognizing that the purpose of the system is to force us to deal with each other uh sometimes literally to make deals with each other to start from this agreement and to end in a place we can live with not in a place we think is ideal but one where a problem has been addressed to some degree and where everybody feels like the way in which it was addressed included them involved them spoke to their higher priorities and allowed them to be part of what got done that's very hard to do I think we have a system that is intended to do that but we've lost sense of that fact and so we fought the system for the wrong things and end up pushing it in directions and make it very hard for it to enable us to agree and accommodate and compromise and you know the case for compromise always sounds to people like uh you know kind of a weak political argument shouldn't you really want transformation well you should but you should come into the process wanting transformation to recognizing that there are other people here and they matter too and ultimately where we end up has to be a place that speaks to them as well as to you well and I mean is that that is about our the moral equality that we should all feel is the basis of of democracy and I you Richard Haas has a wonderful phrase in his new recent book of obligations in which he talks about our commitment to rights which is certainly true throughout our history and true of all sides uh we all all invest a lot of what we believe our rights to be but with that we need to have a culture of obligations and you both write about the the importance of obligations of Burke's phrase the web of uh of obligations uh in your book on on Burke you've all and and and Daniel you you quote this great phrase from uh Ralph Ellison uh that uh we need we need a network of complex obligations that binds us together which I think is a great phrase because ultimately the key phrase in at the beginning of of all this is is doing to others as you would have them do unto you it's you know it's Saint Mark's phrase which John Locke uses as it has his statement about the the state of nature in the very first pages of the Second Treatise that that Jefferson Franklin and everyone else read and we seem to have lost that judeo-christian sense of obligation to each other regardless of our political views are well let me I'm gonna connect that back to something that you've all said actually um maybe take it as ever so slightly different direction um Crosby but um you know you've all made the point that um ultimately what we should hope for are outcomes that we can live with and that almost sounds deflationary right I mean that's sort of how how you ball is sort of offering that so then the question is what's the dividend for that the dividend is self-government that that experience again of being able to steer your own life in the private sphere and then work with others because we live together with others to steer Our Lives collectively in the public sphere and that dividend of self-government is literally an experience of empowerment and that experience of empowerment is one which is grounded in our moral equality in our sacred human worth the worth that we all share that we need to recognize in one another so Our obligation to each other also flows from that which is special and sacred in each one of us I think it's important to put those two things together I think there's also a way Crosby I I agree with that it's wonderfully said and I think there's a way that obligation can also be liberating in itself in the sense that it gives us a role it tells us what's expected of us in a complicated situation so that rather than always starting from scratch and thinking what do I want and uh therefore how can I maximize my chance to get it we can also think what do I what's what's demanded of Me by the rule that I have here as somebody's parent is somebody's neighbor as somebody's colleague is somebody's fellow citizen what's required of me here that's a question that can actually help us tremendously in dealing with complicated situations and in dealing with difficulty and without end with Challenge and it isn't simply constraining it is also empowering because it allows us to understand how we relate to other people and in a sense what we could do that would make this situation better is not a question that's easy to answer on our own it becomes much easier to answer when we recognize that we are part of a network of a large web of connections where it's it isn't simply about what other people owe us but also what we owe them and therefore what we could do in this moment to make things a little bit better what kind of action we could take to help things work having that kind of role I think is a it is is a Liberation from the chaos and uncertainty that so many Americans maybe especially younger Americans feel now when they think about their future the future is not simply absolutely open-ended uh that really can be daunting and very hard to Fathom the future requires certain things of you and you take on certain obligations Often by choice by choosing to take a certain role on yourself and part of being a citizen is choosing among those roles and deciding this is what I'm going to do for my community for my family for my society and from then on yes there are obligations that are imposed on you because you've made that decision but those obligations are also a way for you to be useful for you to be effective for you to be constructive and that's some of the best things in life come out of those kinds of obligations and constraints well and obligations that that sometimes require sacrifice the the the obligation of family and frequently in your in your neighborhood or your city or your work um you you you're required to make some sacrifices to make something happen and frequently it's to make something happen for someone else but that you feel obligated obligated to sometimes the our our social our sense of social justice is increased when we see other people who may not be expected to make sacrifices making sacrifice uh thing I'm thinking of you know the uh in in World War One the Harlem uh Hellfighters or or the the code talkers and Wind Talkers who who uh who who volunteered uh in extraordinary numbers the Native Americans who who are not yet fully citizens of the United States who nonetheless volunteered at higher rate than anyone else in World War one and then we know in World War II about for instance the uh the Nissan division which is the most created division in World War II and and it seems to me out of those experiences sometimes out of the fire and a sacrifice there there becomes a larger sense of ourself uh ourselves as a nation um and uh and and you've both written about sacrifices as as an important aspect of the of the Civic uh culture that we may have been missing over the last few years well certainly the case that the issue of our commitment to one another is at the core our commitment to one another is at the core of a healthy democracy and commitment does inevitably entail giving things up for other people and the challenge is always is sort of on our sacrifice as we respect the sacrifices that we make for a democracy we also want to be careful lest sacrifice fall continuously on the same people so there is very significant work to do to call all of us into a shared project a mutual set of exchanges an ability to see those places where where sometimes too much has been asked of particular people and where there needs to be in fact recompense or a writing of the of the balance there so um yes sacrifices at the the heart of democratic citizenship because a concept of the fact that we live with others is at the heart of democracy and that calls us to courage it calls us to honesty it calls us to reciprocity I always like to put reciprocity at the center of the sort of picture of the values it takes to keep democracy healthy absolutely absolutely well I've accused you both of being madisonians in topvillians now I'm going to accuse you of being aristotelians um and uh one word that seems to me to be appropriate here and and that you've both talked about is uh is friendship um and and our ability to see each other again which we can do at the local level we have a hard time seeing this when we come when we come into contact with people at the national level we're thinking in National terms um we used to not have that problem quite so much at least when I was growing up but we do we do it the local levels seem to be able to have that friendship Aristotle talks about in the nicomaki ethics that uh that the city really is made up ideally of Justice plus friendship uh and and would you talk a little bit about uh about the the Aristotelian view of what the city the posts that that the ideal polity really really is and how we how we get there a small question well you know I I I am an Aristotelian although I think it's important to recognize that there were a few truths that Aristotle didn't know uh he didn't know that we're all created equal he didn't know that we're all endowed by our creator we're certain eligible rights those are true things that he didn't know and that I think that adding those to his picture of friendship and Society is really the way for us to think about human flourishing uh flourishing is a term that I used a lot but in the absence of the idea of equality uh of of Broad Social equality and I think that flourishing is an even more Grand and glorious concept when we do add to it the idea of equality so that friendship is something that's available across lines of difference in ways that you know sometimes they're unimaginable in theory but are just a reality in practice and that practice comes to be a challenge to our theories and a demand that we formulate better theories friendship in the view that he describes is a way of experiencing life together with people who share your priorities your sense of what it is that matters uh learning from them and with them facing the world together uh jointly and I think one of the great things about modern America is that it makes that kind of friendship available across lines of difference in a way that honestly I think is unprecedented in The Human Experience um and it doesn't always happen of course but it's available to us in this kind of society in a way that we really should acknowledge and celebrate and build on and that kind of friendship is absolutely a foundation of for our Civic life it is a way to think about what we do together what we can enjoy together why all this is worth it um and and why ultimately it's a path to happiness so I I think that kind of grounding in Aristotelian friendship is very very important but always we should remember to add to it the truth that Aristotle didn't know the truth of human equality Danielle together that kind of togetherness can exist today in America wow yeah I I think yuval's point is really an important one there's a job that belongs to us to our generation which is to sort out truth from from falsity um as people have worked on that over time and we do know things now that Aristotle didn't we can learn things from Arizona for sure and I am in many ways um you know an aristotelia and I draw a lot on his philosophy I'll perhaps just leave us with this he has an important list of Virtues that he offers as guides for living courage is one of my favorites of course it's a Midway point halfway between rashness on the one hand you know rushing into a burning building without knowing if anybody is inside at all and then cowardice on the other hand you know people are in there and you don't do anything at all but he has this other virtue it's an unnamed virtue he says he's got no name he doesn't know what to call it but it's a virtue for how we interact with strangers that's really what we do in a big democracy like this is interact with strangers and what is the content of this virtue he says well it's like friendship but without the emotional aspect it's the habits of friendship but not necessarily the feelings and there is a deep and profound point in this that we all learn actually what is entailed by life in a democracy by living with friends and then the challenge is to take the practices the habits of that experience and use those even with people we may not like so well and if we can do that we're doing real Democratic work Uncle Fred Thanksgiving dinner we're not looking forward to it but we all make the afternoon exactly but we can extend that even further then we've got political friendship um and the real stuff of democratic citizenship and and one one last question since we're we're about celebrating commemorating contemplating our our 250th uh anniversary what is patriotism today can we have a shared patriotism today how would you define patriotism this week March towards the 200 50th well let me again invoke this incredible community of those of us over the age of 50 in this country who have linked arms and said we've got to figure out the civic education thing and we're doing that for love of country we all share love of our country we bring a heck of a lot of different political positions and Views to the conversation but we as you've all said we entered into a shared conversation we've put questions at the heart of it and we've committed to being honest in our Reflections about the good and the bad in our country that for me is patriotism that combination of commitment to each other love of country and honesty willing to be honest in our Reflections about where we are as a people and you've all well I think love of country is at the center of that you know I I I would say I I'm an actualized citizen I came to the United States when I was eight years old I became an American when I was 19. and when I took the oath there was a federal judge who gave it and he said to us from now on you need to talk about this country as us not them and that's it that's all he said and I distinctly remember being dissatisfied with this thinking this wasn't much of a speech and yet here I am decades later telling you what he said because that's exactly what I needed to hear in that moment and I think it's exactly what in in real moments of decision and difficulty what patriotism has to mean it has to mean taking ownership of this wonderful thing of the of the extraordinary opportunity that we have to all be Americans together finding love in that and happiness and that finding hope in that that's what love of country is to me well thank you both for for that um I think that this has been a great conversation about this country for all of us thank you thank you thank you Crosby Crosby thank you so much for guiding the conversation and for your thoughtful questions this has been brilliance thank you Danielle and evolve for sharing your ideas and insights your comments about Civic life and civic identity help to challenge us to engage in our community and overall in society which is grounded in moral equality for us thank you so much this has been really wonderful Well we'd like to take a moment to thank our Museum and Library Partners across the country as well as numerous PBS stations for sharing this very important content with all of you but most importantly we'd like to thank all of you for joining us the celebration of America 250 continues with visions of America all stories all people all places on August 16th PBS books and IML Laswell continue to partner in a conversation with Crosby Kemper as he discussed the 75th anniversary of the desegregation of the military and its impact on civil rights and the definition of citizenship for more information go to visions of america.org well until next time I'm Heather Marie montia and happy reading foreign thank you