Resources for remembering
At the institutional level, the question is more complex. While we need to understand why certain norms & structures matter, the path forward isn't always about reforming the institutions themselves.
Dear friends and neighbors,
I’ve been thinking about Emily Chamlee-Wright’s phrase since our conversation: “the great forgetting.” It perfectly captures this sense that we’ve grown so comfortable with freedom’s benefits that we’ve stopped practicing the habits that sustain them.
I’m not suggesting we need to restore everything we’ve lost. Some things were forgotten for good reason. But in letting go of what no longer served us, we may have also released practices we desperately need. The challenge is discernment—what do we recover, what do we reinvent, and what do we leave in the past where it belongs?
Let me share some interesting thinkers and practitioners who, in addition to Emily’s incredible work, can help us find a path forward.
The fundamental shift we need to recognize
Peter Levine at Tufts articulates something profound: the core civic question used to be “What should we do?”—plural, collective, forward-looking. Somewhere along the way, we replaced it with “What are my rights?” or “What can I get?” This shift from collective agency to individual entitlement sits at the heart of Emily’s great forgetting.
At the most human scale: how we disagree
argues that our political divisions aren’t actually about politics—they’re about different types of conversations happening simultaneously. When one person is having a practical conversation (”What policies work?”) and another is having an emotional one (”Do you see my fear?”) or a social one (”Are we still part of the same tribe?”), we talk past each other. His research on “supercommunicators” shows that those who bridge divides don’t do it through clever arguments. They do it by recognizing which conversation is actually happening and meeting people there. They ask 10-20 times more questions than the rest of us. They listen for the conversation beneath the conversation. takes this further with her distinction between healthy and toxic conflict. Her work on “high conflict” gives us off-ramps from our escalation cycles. And Monica Guzmán, writing with Braver Angels, shows what genuine curiosity looks like in practice—not the performative kind we see on social media, but the real thing that changes both people in a conversation.Moving from conversation to civic practice
Liz Joyner’s Village Square work contains perhaps the simplest and most powerful insight: “People are hard to hate close-up.” She’s not theorizing about this—she’s been hosting civic conversations in bars, churches, and across hundred-foot tables in downtown Tallahassee. The model has spread to other communities because it works. You can literally start one next week.
’s reads like field notes from someone actually practicing pluralism, not just advocating for it. He shows how to build what he calls “confident pluralism”—holding your own beliefs while creating space for others to hold theirs.At the institutional level: remembering why norms exist
The question becomes more complex here. While we need to understand why certain norms and structures matter, the path forward isn’t always about reforming the institutions themselves.
, having grown up under military dictatorships in Pakistan, recognizes early warning signs of institutional decay that others miss. Her recent writing on academic freedom isn’t partisan—she critiques threats from both left and right. What she offers is a framework for understanding why certain institutional norms evolved and what happens when we let them atrophy., an “unabashed pluralist,” explores what Tocqueville called “the art of association.” While our national politics spirals downward, Stid sees “green shoots of promise and pluralism” sprouting in communities nationwide. His insight: democracy’s health depends less on institutional reforms than on our capacity to associate across difference. Instead of asking “How do we get people to do a thing?” he asks “How do we equip people to become capable civic actors?” For Stid, renewal comes not through better rules but through rebuilding our associational muscles—the very thing Emily identifies as forgotten.An unexpected coda
Let me close with something that might seem out of place. Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files—yes, the musician—offers something we desperately need: reminders that mercy and genuine curiosity remain available, even now. Sometimes the best civic education comes from outside the policy world entirely.
Here’s what I find hopeful: these aren’t grand solutions requiring federal legislation or constitutional amendments. They’re practices we can begin tomorrow. Host a dinner with someone you disagree with. Ask more questions. Join or start a Village Square. Sign up for a Braver Angels workshop or debate. Read one of these writers and discuss it with your team.
Emily’s right—the forgetting happened slowly, through countless small abdications. The remembering will happen the same way, through countless small practices.
In subsequent Real Insights, we’ll explore what organizations and institutions can do to create conditions for remembering at scale. But for now, I encourage you to continue the real work of self-governance. The ‘doing’ of democracy that happens in conversations, in community meetings, in the thousand small acts of citizenship that our republic depends on.
Until next time, Erica
P.S. - I’m new to Substack but already discovering the richness of conversation that happens in the comments and cross-posts. I’d love to hear from you: what other writers and thinkers on this platform are grappling with Emily’s “great forgetting”? Who else is mapping paths toward civic remembering?