Glimmers of Hope

In October, I facilitated two The New Civic Path book circles. Both groups were virtual: one was a mix of folks from across Manatee and Sarasota counties, and the other was with an existing book group from a 55+ community in Manatee.

​Now that I’ve wrapped up both circles, I’d like to share three takeaways from my experience as a facilitator:

​1. Crisis of Belief
The first sentence of Rich Harwood’s manifesto, The New Civic Path, is: “Dear friend, I am writing to you because we suffer from a crisis of belief in our country today—and we must act.” He continues: “So many people—especially young people—have lost faith in America. We have lost belief in our leaders, institutions, systems—even one another.” My book circle participants affirm Rich’s assessment. While they have enough belief to show up to the circle and read a book that advocates for positive action, every participant expressed concern about the state of our country and our ability to do something about it.

​2. Fear and Anxiety > Polarization
In 2022, The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation published a report titled “Civic Virus: Why Polarization Is a Misdiagnosis.” After conducting 16 in-depth focus groups across the country, they identified that, rather than people being polarized: 1) “People are separating and segregating themselves from one another due to unrelenting fear and anxiety about what’s happening around and to them,” 2) “Many news leaders and social media are intentionally manufacturing and stoking divisions for their own self-interest, with social media helping to create and amplify these divisions, and 3) “Seeing no way out, people are in an instinctive fight-or-flight response, many breaking up into smaller groups and camps to protect themselves and gain validation while others retreat from engaging at all.”

While many Americans are indeed polarized, my book circle participants showed me that The Harwood Institute is right that it’s more about “unrelenting fear and anxiety about what’s happening around and to them.” My participants are open to engaging across lines of difference around shared aspirations, but they’re afraid of what might happen. They’re concerned that, if/when they do, there will be an inability to communicate effectively and constructively. Perhaps Harwood is right: if a diagnosis is defined as “the identification of the nature of an illness or other problem by examination of the symptoms,” then polarization is more of a symptom—fear and anxiety is the diagnosis. How can this recognition shift one’s approach to community impact?

​3. Glimmers of (Authentic) Hope
Despite a crisis of belief and despite fear and anxiety, I saw so many glimmers of hope in my book circles. In The New Civic Path, Rich distinguishes between false hope and authentic hope, false hope happening when our actions do not match our promises, and authentic hope when our actions do, “when people come together across dividing lines and can see and hear one another.” My book circles contained a diversity of ideology, age, race, and gender, and folks were able to listen and dialogue with each other. Despite their assessment of the world, so many of them have already or were currently working on projects to improve their communities. So many committed to doing even more. Like Mr. Rogers reminds us, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” Perhaps there are more glimmers of hope out there than we realize; we just have to look away from what we’re seeing on our phones, computers, and televisions and go looking for them.