Introduction

Something is broken at the heart of American civic life. Years past the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, our society is beset with widening social epidemics of loneliness, ideological polarization, conspiracy thinking, mistrust, and despair. A politics of mutual scorn has set in: while most Democrats and Republicans say they support the core values underlying American constitutional democracy, only about one-third believes members of the other party do so as well.1 Compared to ten years ago, Americans across ideological lines report feeling less free to speak on politics, race, and current events due to fear of retaliation or public criticism.2

Explanations for this brokenness are numerous. The most commonly cited are craven political leaders, unresponsive institutions, and conflict-addicted media—in particular, social media—which have made it more difficult for Americans to find a sense of shared identity and common purpose.3

But while the media, political institutions, and individual politicians do indeed contribute to worsening disunity, they are joined by something bigger at the root of American life. That something is civic culture—the sum of the countless choices millions of Americans make every day as we navigate how to live together. Civic culture shapes how we treat one another, whether we care for our community, how we show up to solve common problems, and whether we are able to disagree without hating one another.

A healthy civic culture is vital to a mass, multi­racial, multifaith constitutional democracy like ours. This notion is at the heart of the Academy’s Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century, a report from the Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship. That report argues that political institutions and civic culture are in a cyclical relationship. When institutions are responsive and adaptive, they feed and reward a culture of constructive citizen participation, which makes institutions much more responsive and adaptive. That is a virtuous cycle. When we have a culture that presumes the game is rigged and participation is a waste of time, our institutions become more easily corrupted and incompetent, and more people think the game is rigged. That is a vicious cycle. The latter is how too many Americans today would describe the state of our union.4

The chicken-and-egg relationship between civic culture and institutional structure complicates efforts to assess which comes first. But our working group knew where we wanted to start. Democracy reformers in the United States have paid more attention in recent decades to structure and institutions—as if merely changing formal laws and rules would be sufficient to bring vitality to the body politic. We believe it is also time to focus on norms, customs, mores—what Alexis de Tocque­ville called “habits of the heart”—and on how to make such habits constructively contagious. These habits should resonate both emotionally, with the heart, and intellectually, with the mind. Our civic culture lies somewhere between the two.

Throughout 2023, to build on the Our Common Purpose report, the Academy convened a diverse and distinguished interdisciplinary working group comprising scholars, philanthropists, journalists, civic leaders, activists, artists, and educators. Their mission: articulate how to improve America’s civic culture. Habits of Heart and Mind encapsulates the working group’s insights into what constitutes a healthy civic culture, why a healthy civic culture is central to American constitutional democracy, and how to foster a healthy civic culture in our communities and organizations.

This publication is a sampler of ingredients and recipes for creating a healthy civic culture. The aim is not to provide a generic formula or one-size-fits-all approach. We highlight nourishing recipes and methods that we enjoy and that can be enriching. And we encourage you to cook something up with your own unique blend of ingredients.

Across the country, people, places, and programs are fostering civic relationships across lines of difference, building connections between neighbors, and restoring trust in one another. From Alaska to Arizona to Atlanta, communities are getting civic culture right. Each context is different, but Habits of Heart and Mind is designed such that anyone can take ingredients from these places to suit their specific context.

This publication focuses on ways to foster a healthy civic culture in geographically bound physical communities. We recognize that much of the culture of the internet and social media is counter to the kind of culture we seek. The online manifestation of civic culture is beyond the purview of this publication. However, understanding how to fortify civic culture in an analog world is a useful place to start, even for those whose work focuses on digital life.

This publication is for “civic catalysts,” whom we define as anyone who wants to make their community better. A civic catalyst believes in the promise of America and works with others to make it a reality. They might spend their energies in education, business, family and neighborhood life, politics, or philanthropy. For civic catalysts or for anyone aspiring to become one, this publication aims to provide guidance to help increase the appetite for a healthier civic culture. That is, the aim of this publication is to stimulate both a supply of ways to create a healthy civic culture and a demand among Americans for a healthier way of living together.

Habits of Heart and Mind contains five main sections. First, we define civic culture. Second, we step back to assess the importance of a healthy civic culture to American constitutional democracy. Third, we describe the methods that can help foster a healthy civic culture. Fourth, we offer specific case studies that showcase different combinations of these mechanisms. Fifth, we address the key issue of measuring civic culture and offer a set of questions to evaluate the health of civic culture in different contexts.

Whether we know it or not, all of us shape American civic culture every day with our actions and our words. Presidents and elections can poison our civic culture, but they cannot heal it. Only people can do that through our everyday choices. Fortifying that civic culture, making it less divisive, more caring, and healthier, will require all of us. Through an understanding of the challenges facing that culture today, Americans can close the gap between our creed and our deeds as citizens. Together, we can build a nation rooted in love of community and a search for common purpose.

Endnotes

• 1

  “Starts with Us: American Values Poll,” NORC at University of Chicago, May 2023.

• 2

  “84% Say Americans Being Afraid to Exercise Freedom of Speech Is a Serious Problem,” Siena College Research Institute, March 21, 2022.

• 3

  David Klepper, “Americans Fault News Media for Dividing Nation: AP-NORC poll,” Associated Press, May 1, 2023; and Soo Ling Lim and Peter J. Bentley, “Opinion Amplification Causes Extreme Polarization in Social Networks,” Scientific Reports 12 (18131) (2022).

• 4

  American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century (Cambridge, Mass.: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2020), 3.