Published July 1, 2024
The cover story for this summer’s issue of America’s leading highbrow magazine, The Atlantic, carries an apocalyptic title suited to the age of clickbait: “What will become of American civilization?” The article itself is more contemplative, an eloquent 25,000-word mosaic sketch of the trials and triumphs of the city of Phoenix that offers the nation’s fastest-growing metropolis as a metaphor and case study for the crises of contemporary American politics. One line sums up the problem: “When Kari Lake ran for governor in 2022, everyone knew her position on transgenderism and no one knew her position on water, because she barely had one.”
Throughout the article, author George Packer laments over how the politics of culture-warring has crowded out the politics of everyday life, so polarizing and poisoning the debates that no one has the time or the will to tackle crucial issues of basic sustainability and infrastructure. Although Packer is wrong to dismiss worries over transing teens as a distraction from serious policy, he nonetheless offers a timely warning for would-be conservative leaders: Don’t forget to govern.
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Brad Littlejohn was a Fellow in EPPC’s Technology and Human Flourishing and Evangelicals in Civic Life programs from 2022-2025. His wide-ranging research and writing encompasses work on the relation of digital technology and embodiment, the appropriate limits of free speech, the nature of freedom and authority in the Christian tradition, and the retrieval of a Protestant natural law ethic.
