Habits of the Heart: Conclusion

We're sharing the final installment of our 2025 slow read with everyone

As our team takes time off for the holidays, we are sharing the conversations Sarah and Beth had this year about Habits of the Heart. This final episode originally aired in December for our premium members on Substack.

Whether you’re also taking a well-deserved break, spending time with family, or just looking for something meaningful to listen to, we hope you’ll join us to revisit (or enjoy for the first time!) this thoughtful exploration from Sarah and Beth of this powerful, prescient book.

Beth subtitled this section, “Good Luck, Babes.” They talk about the problem of individualism, how we need to make not just a good life, but a good society, why we need to argue more, and the struggle in realizing that nothing systemic can save us from personal suffering.

Want more Pantsuit Politics? Subscribe to ensure you never miss an episode and get access to our premium shows and community.

Episode Transcript

Alise Napp [00:00:07] This is Alise Napp, you’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Over the last two weeks, as our team has been off for the holidays, we’ve enjoyed sharing our Habits of the Heart slow read episodes from throughout the year. We read through this book with our premium community on Substack all throughout 2025, and these conversations first aired there. Today, this final look at Habits of the Heart originally aired just a few weeks ago on December 10. In it, Sarah and Beth discuss the problem of individualism, how we need to make not just a good life but a good society, why we need to argue more, and the struggle in realizing that nothing systemic can save us from personal suffering. There’s a lot of cheerful stuff in there too, don’t worry. We hope that you have enjoyed hearing these conversations, particularly if you’re not already a subscriber on Substack. We are actively in discussion about what our slow read for 2026 will be and we would love to have you join us there for that and all the rest of our regular premium shows. We’ll be back to regular programming here on Tuesday. Until then, we hope that 2026 is off to a wonderful start for you and yours.

Beth [00:01:18] Sarah, we have spent a year now with Habits of the Heart. We have gushed about Habits of the Heart on these episodes. Two people that we’ve been talking with, like anybody we interview, I feel like we have Habits of the Heart mentionitis. It’s coming up all the time.

Sarah [00:01:36] I’m flipping through the pages. I think there’s maybe less than 10 pages I did not underline ‘star’. This page has a ‘wow’ written next to it. There’s a ‘whoa’ lots of ‘stars’. It’s just there’s less than 10 pages I did not mark, underline, exclaim over.

Beth [00:01:59] So when we last spoke, we were like, okay, they have really thoroughly broken down what the problem is. Maybe now they’re going to tell us how to fix it. And that is not how this book ended.

Sarah [00:02:11] No, the conclusion is transforming American culture.

Beth [00:02:17] Subtitled by me. Good luck, babes.

Sarah [00:02:23] Good luck, babes. I don’t know if I was completely bummed out, but I do think I struggle with the question they struggle with, which is if this is beyond politics, if this is about culture, which is the argument they’re making, does that mean policy can fix it? If it means policy cannot fix it, can anything fix it? I mean, I don’t think fix is the right verb. We don’t use fix when we talk about humans, remember. But what can address this? I think they get at some things that I’d like to talk about. I don’t know if they name some solutions, but they made me think of solutions in other countries that I think work. So maybe we should just dive in.

Beth [00:03:16] Okay, let’s do it.

Sarah [00:03:18] First, they really want to emphasize one more time what the problem is, which is our ontological individualism. We have a culture of separation.

Beth [00:03:32] And they spend a lot of time exploring that individualism through the lens of TV in the conclusion, which I thought was fascinating.

Sarah [00:03:41] Well, okay, yes, I totally agree because I think they’re really struggling with, okay, if we don’t have aspects of the public sphere, specifically a strong presence of religion as an institution, as a place to have these conversations, I just want to say, this is what I tell my children on the way to church when they’re complaining why do we go to church? I say, because we have to have a specific time and place to ask, what does it mean to live a good life? And what does that mean to be a good person? It is vital, I say, that we have these places and that we have time set aside. So I think they’re struggling with, okay, well, if it’s not church, because of increasingly secular society, I think they’re right to point to both public education and academia and popular culture as two places these conversations take place.

Beth [00:04:43] And workplaces. I think that’s right. I think those three spheres are right.

Sarah [00:04:48] And the first question I had for you is when they’re talking about-- they call it the multiversity, the contemporary multiversity which is basically higher ed. It is easier to think of education as a cafeteria in which one acquires discrete bodies of information and useful skills. And I was thinking about you’ve used that analogy or that metaphor before as well. And do we need to push past the cafeteria metaphor? Like we talk about Substack like a cafeteria. No, you talk about it as a mall, but we’ve talked about our community as a cafeteria, as a buffet, take what you have and leave the rest. And I was convicted maybe we should push past them all, the cafeteria, the buffet. Maybe that’s what they’re arguing is it’s not just enough to take what you need; we have to talk about what we all need.

Beth [00:05:36] Yeah. Because we’re offering a product/service where you come and you should take what you need, and you shouldn’t feel pressured to be ready for the test. We use it in contrast to education because education should be about common things. I’m really struggling right now. I’m trying to work on a series for More to Say about special education. And I have pages and pages and pages of notes from focus groups and pages and pages and page of research. And I am stuck on what are we even trying to do? And I don’t know anymore. I was reading this thinking about like, yeah, I don’t think the cafeteria model works in this context because it is supposed to have an objective. But we are way past what are even trying to do. We, the grand we. There are definitely people in education who have a very specific idea about what they’re trying to do. But how that plugs into the broader system, it’s really challenging.

Sarah [00:06:41] This was the sentence that I thought really nailed it. And I think this is true of intellectual culture. They’re specifically talking about popular culture.

Beth [00:06:49] I have a prediction about which sentence this is, so I’m going to hold onto that and then tell you if I got it or not.

Sarah [00:06:54] Is it they do not support any clear set of beliefs or policies yet they cast doubt on everything.

Beth [00:06:58] Well, I did like that one, too. I thought you were going to highlight, though, the lack of a common text even within a classroom, that there that there isn’t even like a Shakespearean play that you can assume everyone has read at this point because I do think that’s a massive problem. I’m really comforted that Jane’s English class is about to read To Kill a Mockingbird, all of them together. I really think this is important.

Sarah [00:07:23] Griffin’s class, his AP I think he’s reading American literature. They read texts. They read the adventures of Huck Finn. They’re going to read The Great Gatsby. Right now they’re reading Sister Carrie, I don’t know why.

Beth [00:07:36] But fine, you’re all reading it and you’re talking about it together, great.

Sarah [00:07:40] That’s the thing. Here’s where I’m really struggling. We’re supposed to be getting to solutions guys, but we’re still, we just really...

Beth [00:07:47] This is how they were though.

Sarah [00:07:48] But that’s the problem. The problem is we all sit around and we analyze the problems instead of saying, yeah, but we got to do something. I’m very feeling this way right now about long-term committed relationships, i.e. Marriage. The narrative online right now about basically we don’t need each other, men and women don’t need each other; men don’t deserve it, women don’t need them, I’m like, I can’t. I cannot do one more thing of that. It’s so bad, guys. If you want to see how this plays out, go take a gander at South Korea right now. Not great, guys. It’s not great. We’ve all read a Handmaid’s Tale. When people stop having babies either forcibly or otherwise, shit goes off the rails. That doesn’t mean that I think any individual who chooses not to or cannot have children is facing some fundamental lack Individually, but we have got to be able to toggle back and forth which I think is an overall argument in this book. We have to do walk and chew gum at the same time. We have two say this is not an attack on you as the individual but we are pursuing certain paths as a human society. There has to be some objectives. There has to be somewhere we’re aiming for. There has some where we’re going. Over the break, in my little note section where I’m like sometimes working out ideas, I wrote, “Not just what makes a good life for you, but how do we make a good live for the most people?” I think we’ve just gotten so-- and they talk a lot about this, like, we’re just so consumed with personal success and personal happiness, and we have got to start thinking about how do make a good society? How do we make a good life for the most people? Doesn’t mean it has to look the same for everyone, but we’ve just gotten so mired in the, well, if I point out there’s a problem for me or there was a harm for me from this institution or there is a harm for a lot of people from this Institution, then we did it. I don’t think that’s working. And it wasn’t working in 1984 and these people were trying to warn us about it.

Beth [00:10:19] It is interesting that they were trying to warn us about it in 1984, because I was thinking about the sitcom, soap opera, like the context in which they’re writing about television specifically. I watched a ton of television as a kid. So much television.

Sarah [00:10:34] So much TV. It was like my sibling.

Beth [00:10:38] And the sitcoms that I watched were totally centered around families and marriage, and having kids, and working through your stuff. And we have conflict, but we resolve it. There were blended families. So it wasn’t like everybody’s life has to look exactly the same, but it was like we continue to look for the opportunity to partner and be together. It was just that they were looking at that as a text and were concerned about it. I just think like how would you feel today? We were at my mother-in-law’s house for Thanksgiving, and she has a house that has the TV on all the time. And I haven’t been around the TV on all of the time in a very long time in my everyday life. I don’t enjoy it either. Daytime television is terrible. Like it’s so bad what was just on network TV running in the background. So many court shows, like fake court shows. So I was thinking about like the distinction between daytime TV when I was a kid was mostly talk shows. So we’re still kind of pursuing relationships, right? If daytime TV now is this endless catalog of controversy between two people, mediated by like a celebrity judge, that’s a really different text than the daytime TV text that I grew up with. It was so jumpy. The commercials were insane. What the commercials for was almost all pharmaceutical products.

Sarah [00:12:24] So many pharmaceutical ads. There was so many pharmaceuticals during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. It was wild. So many. I did love that Facebook ad, even though I do not think Facebook is a path to get together. But I thought that ad with Bob Dylan and Johnny Cashon was very good.

Beth [00:12:39] We got in the car afterward and I said to Chad, I am never going to criticize the kids and their six sevens and so forth again because daytime television now is the same thing for old people. It’s the same thing. It is nonsense. It is not storytelling. And I’m not trying to make anybody feel bad, but if you’re stepping back and trying to analyze where are we as a culture, I see a lot of these trends playing out on television now. And then I find myself really confused about what they were seeing in the ‘80s which feels idyllic to me, comparatively.

Sarah [00:13:17] As an amateur television scholar here’s what I would say. In the ‘80s, the family was in a crisis. Not all families, but there was that take off post 70s as women returned to work of the divorce rate. The divorce rate is actually down because people aren’t getting married. And I think you see a reflection of that and the sort of crumbling of the dating world and people’s desire to date in all of the dating reality shows. So I think TV is a reflection of both a crisis and what people want and what they’re sad that’s falling apart. And I do not think it’s an accident that in the early 2000s, and even today you still see this trend, you actually did see community shows. The Office is a community show. It’s about a community. Now it’s a workplace community, but not in the same way that NYPD Blue or ER was. It’s really not about the job. It’s about the community of people. There was a show literally called Community. You have Parks and Rec. You have shows that are aspiring. They are a little bit aspirational and to me they are like a warning that these places were falling apart for people and that’s what they wanted in their lives. They wanted to see this and that why the sitcoms are often what people, I feel like, see falling apart and are sad about and don’t want that to happen. I think you still see there’s the elementary school show is still in that vein.

Beth [00:14:39] Abbott Elementary.

Sarah [00:14:40] There’s a new cheerleading tumble. I’ve seen a bunch of ads for that in that vein. And so I don’t think that TV often is causing the problem. I just think it is a manifestation of people’s anxieties about the problem often because they want to watch something that makes them feel better about that. And that’s why I like in the 50s when they were building the suburbs, there was a bunch of shows about the pioneers and the explorers and living out in the country and you had Bonanza and Mayberry when everybody was moving to the suburbs. So you can see the rise and fall of people’s anxiety. I just think at a certain point we got to the pop culture itself is we are entertaining ourselves to death. That was written about TV and it is just as true today. There’s only so many hours in the day; and if you’re dedicating many of them to entertainment, there is just less time for community in the work of culture and society.

Beth [00:15:49] Yeah, I’m sitting here thinking about what it means that the most popular TV for many years now has been crime shows, and what that says about our anxieties and aspirations. I guess that we continue to have a hero complex, and that’s what a lot of those crime shows are about. So the anxiety of crime and then it’s not a community, it’s this amazing detective or two. These firefighters, these police officers. And maybe some of that speaks to the Habits of the Heart foundational pieces of community that they lament going by the wayside here. That we are in such a cast doubt on everything culture. That we long for believing that the police are good, and the firefighters are helpful, and we can trust all of these people in our communities who have roles and positions of authority.

Sarah [00:16:54] Yeah. I just think so much of it is with pop culture, which is built still, even with social media on advertising, you’re resting on a foundation that fundamentally oriented to an individualistic perspective. They’re selling things to you. They’re not selling community, however great that Facebook ad is. They’re selling things to as a person. It’s just like the orientation of all this media we’re taking in is about you, your individual self. And that’s what they spend a lot of time talking about that. Like we have put our own good as individuals, as groups, as a nation ahead of the common good. We have failed to remember our communities as members of the same body. I think it’s really hard. I think that the marketplace and the capitalistic system is so oriented to individualism and also are from the industrialization and absolutely the technological revolution just continues to orient people in one direction, which is individually, maybe your family member. It’s just I’m watching the Revolutionary War right now by Ken Burns. And we live so differently. And again, I think they are careful to say this too. There has been enormous gains in our overall standard of living and the amount of people who die from infectious disease and poverty and all these things, these have been massive improvements to our individual lives. But when we don’t need each other to survive in the same way we used to, I think it is hard to keep that community orientation. It really, really is.

Beth [00:18:50] It really, really is, and what I would say to someone to go back to the cafeteria, the buffet situation, is if you value our work and want to be part of our premium community, it’s not a test. You can listen to what you want and skip other things and it’s fine. What do you want to get out of this though? Because if you want to have friends here, if you want know people in the comments, if you want to find a support system and a place to work out ideas, then yeah, you should listen to everything and show up. And you should comment, and you should be part of it. And should is just a word that we’re all allergic to now. But maybe some of the sweet spot is attaching the should to your desired outcome. If you dip in and out, you’re going to have a very different experience than if you go all in. That’s true about everything. I was thinking about that with my church small group last night. I sent a text to a lot of people about our small group get togethers and the same small group of people show up. And that’s fine. I’m not mad at anybody who gets the text and doesn’t come. They’re just going to have a really different experience if they do come than the people who are making it a priority and coming every time. And I feel like that’s a message that’s really hard because we’re trained to be like, oh my God, everybody is busy. It is impossible to do anything ever. Doing anything consistently is so challenging. And, yeah, that is true. But it’s also like if you’re driving at a what for-- and that to me is the urgency of Habits of the Heart, the what for. If you’re at a driving at what for then you do have to like back up and say what things are worth a little bit of should in my life where I should show up because I’m not going to get anything out of this if I don’t prioritize it.

Sarah [00:20:51] Well, I think what’s confusing about sort of the structure of this conclusion is they do that, and then they kind of get into the solution of reconstituting the social world. And then they go back to the problem, signs of the time and the poverty of affluence, which could have been called affluenza, which is a thing that’s been written about. I mean, they were on the affluence train way in advance. I do think that reconstituting the social worlds is good. And they talk about our Republican processes; the institutions of our political republic need revitalization. Also, did you catch this straight up artificial intelligence line in here?

Beth [00:21:31] No, I didn’t.

Sarah [00:21:33] Automation that turns millions of our citizens into servants of robots is already a form of despotism for which the pleasures of private life, modest enough for those of minimum skill and minimum wage, cannot compensate.

Beth [00:21:54] I struggled a little bit with the way they talked about work specifically.

Sarah [00:22:00] They’re really talking about vocation more than work, I think.

Beth [00:22:04] And I think that they talk about it in a way that is very, like, we’re all prisoners of our own experiences. And I think that comes across in this section more than others with this group of authors, that these are people who work in higher ed. And they are thinking mostly about work as vocation or calling or something that you derive a lot of meaning from. I think this is a good contrast to the office. The magic of The Office was that there’s a community around jobs that are just jobs. You’re not passionate about working at Dunder Mifflin. And a lot of people are never going to do work that they’re passionate about, and that’s okay. They can still have an experience at work that feels meaningful and valuable and rewarding. I just felt like they talked about work in this section. And honestly, the affluenza kind of bothers me too because there’s a little bit of romanticizing the blue collar experience while simultaneously undercutting it because it isn’t that sort of passion driven, meaningful vocation. I was just reading it thinking like, guys, you don’t have to speak for everybody, but we are sounding a little bit like out of touch here.

Sarah [00:23:15] Well, I didn’t feel that. And here’s why I think here’s the layer I’d like to add. I think the key here and what they’re advocating is not that every job has to be individual passion project. That’s the interpretation of career that we currently are just completely mired in. It needs to be something that is your individual passion, right? And I think what they’re advocating, and I think it exists-- I thought of France a couple of times during this chapter. One during the television portion because they still have a lot of programs that are a part of the national conversation because they’re socialized in a way. They have these channels that are national channels and they don’t have the same decentralized particularly news environment as we do, so there’s a national conversation taking place through the lens of these public television shows that I think America desperately needs. It used to be. That’s sort of what the Today Show was or Good Morning America was or 60 Minutes was. And I think they’re still there, but if young people aren’t watching it what does it matter? So I think France gets that part right. I think all the time about this I don’t remember if it was a written story or a video or whatever, but it was the street sweepers in France and how much pride they bring to the job. This is not something that somebody grew up in and this is their individual passion. But I think what they’re arguing for is it can become that if you feel like you are an important piece of the whole. If there is an articulated objective, then whatever your small piece of that is matters. It’s what people articulated around World War II. It’s not like anybody’s individual passion project was screwing in cogs on a warplane. But when you felt like you were contributing to the community objective, you were a part of the public good at this small little role, then you could bring a lot of pride to it. It gave you a lot a purpose. And doesn’t mean that you in third grade didn’t say I want to be a cog screw runner. I think that that’s what they’re articulating. I think what’s missing and I think it is easier to find that in academia. Although, there’s the paradox that also in the pursuit of an objective like that when it becomes corrupted or toxic, it’s even worse, it hurts even more, which I think a lot of people in higher ed experience and public education to a certain extent. So I think they’re right about that. That there needs to be and there used to be, like if you were on a farm, obviously there was an overall objective and it didn’t matter how literally shitty the job was. Like you knew what you were participating in and you could articulate and see what you are contributing to. It wouldn’t be my choice, but I think why people are like sure I’ll start work 70 hours to bring the new artificial intelligence online. They feel like they’re like serving a purpose bigger than themselves

Beth [00:26:27] I definitely think that all work can have that component of purpose and community, and I understand my role in the whole. I’ve had a lot of experience trying to give people that understanding of their fitting into the whole. Here is how you contribute to the big picture. I think the trouble is that the big picture itself is tough. The corporate lawyer example in here is tough, where you have a bright person doing work that ultimately is about making money for a firm and helping the clients of the firm make more money. That’s tough. Even if you build a lot of comraderies within an office where people are doing that work, even if that young lawyer is mentored well and has lots of friends and is good at the job and can see meaningful progress in the job, that’s tough. And it’s similarly tough, there are blue collar jobs that at the end of the day, the big purpose of the job is still just like this office building is clean now. And yeah I can find and take a lot of pride in that. I guess I just don’t want to have a question about what makes for a good life and what makes a good society that places work in too prominent of a position. Because I think that that’s how we got here. I think work is where we find a lot of our sense of like how do we treat each other? What is my social status relative to other people? And we got to work through that. But part of what I’m really looking for right now is like a vision of society where your job is not the thing that you talk about at a dinner party, and is not like that primary vehicle for understanding your position in the world. I’m not articulating it very well. It just this chapter more than any other just kind of rubbed me wrong and did feel like a bunch of academics sitting around chatting with each other and kind of bemoaning the state of the world.

Sarah [00:28:41] I don’t know. I think I used to feel that way, but I don’t think it’s an accident that Times just had one of these. You go and they went to Japan and all the people who are like 110, over 100 still working, and they are delighted. They’re just like what am I going to do? Sit down and just watch TV? This is my purpose. This is what I’m doing. It’s such a paradox, you have to hold both. But I do think there is something to be said about the human realities to work. Now I think labor for wage is a tougher one. That’s where maybe we started to go a little awry, where we’re selling off our time instead of our effort in a real way. But I think that humans thrive when we just have something to do. When we sit around and get in our heads, it’s not great.

Beth [00:29:46] No, I 100% agree with that, but I think it is like the paid labor is overtaking all of the other forms of doing things that are useful and meaningful and rewarding to and for and with other people.

Sarah [00:30:02] Yeah, and I don’t know if we’re going to extract ourselves from a wage-based economy. And I’m worried that we think that the answer is more leisure, and am really not sure it is. That’s easy for me to say as a person with quite a great deal of leisure time. But I think they’re sort of hovering around something important. And I do think academia is a great, environment because they do know their purpose to a certain extent. The purpose is to ask these questions. I think what they’re saying is, could we articulate some solutions from time to time, guys? Instead of just articulating questions over and over and over and again, especially around the social ecology, which I think they do a good job of articulating and naming and observing that social sciences and politics and culture and art cannot just be a place where we point out the problems. There has to be an articulation of a solution. And sure, because we’re all so well trained in analysis, everybody will be able to point out a problem. But at a certain point for the everyday man and woman, there has to a solution. And again, I don’t know if solution is the right word.

Beth [00:31:17] It’s just so frustrating because do I want a solution coming from social scientists? Probably not. And I don’t think that there is a solution as much as there are just a variety of perspectives to consider. I actually found the appendix more enlightening than the final chapter where they talk about how they did the social science of this book and they connected it more to philosophy and the humanities than the hard sciences. And they talked about how interviews are more valuable than polls and surveys because what we need is more public opinion, more well-informed, broadly shared public opinion. More argument with each other. They specifically talk about how they want to have things in their writing that the reader will argue with. Because that’s what we’re missing. I think one of their critiques throughout the book of management, of therapy, of all the ways that we look for solutions is that it means that a very flattened line of people on an org chart do sit in a room kind of by themselves and say, well, how are we going to solve everything for everybody else? And so maybe what we’re looking for are just more public spheres where people talk about things that matter amongst themselves.

Sarah [00:32:40] But isn’t that what they got posted [inaudible] Facebook? Is it social media and nothing but a social sphere where people argue? I mean, you’re talking about if somebody come to these authors and say, okay, what if we had a way for people to democratically able to come together on a public sphere and argue about how to live a good life and politics? They’d probably be like that sounds great. And it was a fucking hellscape.

Beth [00:33:11] It kind of was great for a minute.

Sarah [00:33:13] It was.

Beth [00:33:15] So maybe the thing to interrogate is where’d that go wrong and how do you fix it? I think some of it is that it wasn’t in person. It was divorced of relationship.

Sarah [00:33:28] Yeah, I think that’s 100% true. I do think though that I’m not opposed to social scientists articulating not a solution, but some solutions. I would not be opposed to an association of social sciences saying we have studied social media’s effect on children; here are our policy recommendations. Take them or leave them, but we should do something. I think they’re pushing the boundaries a little bit and getting a little faster on AI. Here’s the problems we’re already seeing with AI. We should have a policy objective. We should have solution to this. I think back on the last few years about how people would say like, okay, there needs to be a community of parents that comes together and says we’re going to keep the phones away till freshman year or whatever. It needs to a community decision. It seems like we’re getting closer to articulating this has to be a decision that we make together. It’s too hard to put it on the individual or too hard put it on the individual family to fight these things. But I do think we’re a little bit allergic to literally anyone articulating a solution. It’s just so easy to shoot it down. I underlined; I thought this quote was so good. They were talking about Rome and the fall of Rome. Livy’s word about ancient Rome also applies to us. We have reached the point where we cannot bear either our vices or their cure. I just thought, oh no, that’s us. Oh no, help. At some points, we’re going to have to develop an appetite for the cure.

Beth [00:35:01] Which requires change. And it will require some change that you embrace and some change that you resist. And I think that’s the trouble. What am I willing to actually give up in pursuit of something for the group? And then how do we get people to that place? I think that’s maybe why this last chapter read like such a bummer to me, because I think they know that piece, that willingness cannot come through social science. Even if they had a good prescription for society, what you have to do in pursuit of that requires a depth of connection among people who are willing to sacrifice things for each other. And I do struggle to see what sphere would I name beyond my close family members where I think people would say, yeah, I’m willing to give some things up for the good of this group that are going to be annoying to me. Not even things that are like big things. Sometimes it’s easier to get people to make big virtuous statements than suffer ordinary annoyance. Where do we see that? I don’t know.

Sarah [00:36:17] I have lots of ordinary annoyance in my public school system where I’m now the PTO president and have my church. I can name some spheres where I have just ordinary annoyance. That I have to go to meetings that I want to go to and be around people who get on my nerves and to try to push the walk up the hill for sure.

Beth [00:36:38] How do you get critical mass around that though, is what I’m saying. Because a lot of that annoyance could erode if more people were in it with you, I would think.

Sarah [00:36:47] I don’t know about that.

Beth [00:36:49] And it could create new annoyances too.

Sarah [00:36:52] There’s more people to convince and more people to get to row in the same direction. And I think some of this rolls downhill from economic strain. It is hard to get people to row in the direction of the common good when they feel so tightly constrained in providing for themselves or their families. So the economic strain to me is a huge issue. I don’t think it’s an accident that this book was written coming out of the 1970s. And I don’t think you would have written the same book in the mid to late 90s. Because I think that economic strain is so, so important and huge. So I think that’s part of it too. It’s such a catch 22 because I think some of the economic strain is because of the institutions of our republic need attention. It’s almost like you need the economic strength to get so bad. I mean, not total French revolutionary territory, but where people are just fed up and willing to sacrifice as they feel like what do I got to lose? It’s so shitty. I’m ready to fight for something. I mean, that’s definitely, it’s really-- not to have mention on us about the Revolutionary War, but he does such a good job of portraying the variable motivations. And the fact that there were still so many Americans who were like can you just leave me out of this? Can I just stay on my farm and y’all can fight it out and I would really like to be left out of it. Which made me feel better about today too. And that there was so much internal turmoil among family members who were on different sides of the fight and the way we would go after loyalists and burn their farms and maybe lynch them from time to time because they weren’t on the same side as us and just this sense of the ways in which history is both influenced by and influences culture and society in ways that you can’t really control. I mean, that’s where I struggle. I believe that my drop in the river matters and I really try, but how much of this is influenceable at all? How much of this can we change? How much of this is just-- the best we can do is describe and adequately or accurately understand what we’re all swept up in at any given moment in history.

Beth [00:39:36] I don’t know the answer to that. I got stuck a little bit on the economic piece just thinking about the willingness to suffer annoyance or to suffer inconvenience or to change or sacrifice something for the whole. I think partly again, because I’m really consumed with special education right now. What I heard from our focus groups of listeners over and over, where people saying, one, I just want my child’s needs to be seen and our family’s needs in supporting this child to be seen. Two, I want my child to be valued as my child is. And three, in this community of our listeners, I heard a ton of “And we have a lot of advantages here. We don’t have the economic strain that a lot families have. We don’t have the language barriers that other families have. We don’t the educational barriers to communicate about this that other family have.” And I am constantly thinking about people who cannot advocate for their children in the way that I can advocate for mine. And how we can build these systems where the playing field is more equal in that way. And so when you think about what matters, how you make a difference, how you affect big social change, absolutely there is a component of resource that comes to bear. But I think that the ache maybe that is described throughout Habits of the Heart and that I do think crosses social classes and economic classes, I think that ache is maybe more centered around I just want to be known by other people. And I feel like there are fewer and fewer places where I can be known, which is such a weird thing given the media power that almost everyone possesses, to put a diversion of themselves out there to be known. But that feels like the egg to me. Like how can I be known to the people that I interact with all the time?

Sarah [00:42:09] I think probably where I’ve shifted and the question I ask a lot subconsciously or consciously is when we’re talking about an objective, what are we doing here together? And I think this book is asking, what do we doing together in America as Americans? I think for a long time, for most of our history, there were concrete undeniable injustices that we were attempting to address to get closer to the ideal of the individualism articulated as a pursuit of happiness. It’s not the pursuit of goodness as a community; it’s the pursuit of happiness. And I think while not perfect, we did a pretty good job of that. I think what’s so difficult is because we did such a good job, overall, broad strokes here, broad strokes, of removing the foundational structural injustices that became even in my own mind the removal of individual suffering. But that is an impossible task. We cannot do that. That is not available to us, even as Americans. We cannot remove all individual suffering. Suffering is a reality of the human existence in America and anywhere else. And so I get caught up sometimes in that swirl. Are we talking about injustice that can be solved structurally? Are we talking about suffering that must be addressed as best we can as humans, but is not a structural issue that we can solve? I think about this a lot with special education. I think we were trying to structurally address individual suffering and rightfully people are upset that we did not adequately address their individual suffering. Because I think the goal is unachievable to a certain extent. Not that we can’t lessen suffering, but that’s a much harder objective to quantify, to achieve, and we’re going to disagree on what it means to lessen individual suffering. So I think that’s what’s so difficult about our historical moment. Is that the structural injustices-- not that I don’t think there are structural injustices in our immigration system that we could absolutely address, would love to start there, but do you see what I mean? I just think that now a lot of what we’re talking about and a lot of what we saddle in particular the public education system with is individual suffering, individual trauma, individual disabilities, individual struggles. And I’m not sure how even social science or academia-- I do think philosophy and religion has a lot to say about individual suffering and how to handle it. But I feel like we were bumping up against that a lot in public policy and our institutions, even in our conversations.

Beth [00:45:48] I think that’s right. And I think the people who are most enthusiastic about artificial intelligence do believe that they are working toward a world that alleviates individual suffering.

Sarah [00:46:00] Outrageous! You ding-dongs, have you studied history?

Beth [00:46:02] But that’s what they think, right? We’re going to improve health to the point that people don’t have to suffer. We’re going to fix your loneliness. I think all the time about the Mark Zuckerberg quote about how many friends people want and how many friends people have and now we can fill the friend gap for you. I think there are people who are pursuing the objective of not having individual suffering.

Sarah [00:46:26] Like Elon who is suffering for all the world to see is wild.

Beth [00:46:32] Who is suffering. And as I spend more time thinking about special education specifically, and I’m sorry to have directed us here so much in this conversation, but I do think it is a really good case study of a lot of what’s going on in Habits of the Heart. The thing I keep coming back to is I think what most people want for their children from school cannot happen in the format of giant systems. The I see you, I know you, I value you piece has to come in smaller groups where people can be known to each other and where there’s time for that, where you’re not playing beat the clock all day, which is a lot of education right now, right? It’s just there’s just not time. We’re trying to do so many things that there isn’t time. But the care, the physical care and support that certain folks need in order to be in an environment where they can be seen and known by others requires a lot of big systems right now. And so there’s a size component to a lot of questions that I have right now. What can we accomplish and at what scale? To find the sweet spot, not where we’re eliminating all individual suffering, not where we are in a perfectly just configuration, but where we are in a small enough group to trust that everyone’s doing their best towards those aims and that everyone wishes for each other the freedom to pursue happiness. And wishes for each other that comfort of feeling that you know other people and are genuinely known to them. And wishes each other the opportunity to pursue your individual passion while still feeling that you are a part of the fabric of the group. And I think we’re going to have to find that in smaller and smaller settings. I don’t mean to say that everybody has to go back to church. I’m not finding in my own church the answers to many of these questions. So it’s not like I think that’s a fix all. And I’m saying that we need to go back to like one room school houses. Although I have questions about that and whether like, again, just bringing people closer and closer is maybe a first step because we have so much doubt about large systems and because we have so little trust once we operate at any level of scale.

Sarah [00:49:23] And I think there are aspects of this that we can’t control and that are just about the era we are in the waves of history. And I do think that we’ve made technology our God, which feels like it’s in our control and we can maximize and set the expectations way too high for what a human life should be like. I don’t think it’s all bad when they believed in the Greek gods and they could just, on a whim, mess you up and you didn’t do anything wrong, or maybe you did, I don’t know. I think fate was not a terrible concept. And I think that’s why people are very, very relieved and find a lot of emotional support in my chaos theory. Because you know what it is? It’s just fate. I just named it something different. I called it the chaos lottery instead of Zeus, but it’s the same thing. It’s the same thing, which is you’re at the fate. You’re at the fates, at their whims. That’s just how it works, man. And it doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. And it does mean you can maximize your way out of it. And no robot is going to freaking save us. Certainly not one designed by Elon Musk. So I think that there is an aspect of the ontological framework, the ecology in which we live. And I think they were at this transition into this technological, I think, they saw it with TV and that’s why this feels so still relevant and prescient is because they were at the beginning of that technological transition revolution that’s going to sell us this idea that the right maximization, the right productivity, the right technology will free us from the whims of fate. And that is a lie, that’s a lie. That’s not how it works.

Beth [00:51:15] I agree with them, that ecology is a good and helpful metaphor. And I think that that’s something I keep coming back to as I have these questions about scale, is that ecology place-based. And maybe the real critique of media, whether you’re talking about Dallas-- I laughed so hard when they referenced J.R. Ewing. Whether you talking about TV or social media, is that then you just introduce invasive species everywhere, all the time, constantly. Because so much of what attracts our attention is not of our place. And so we can’t filter it. We can’t let it find its natural allies and its natural place in the configuration of things that can all exist together. And we don’t even have a second to settle on this thing that came in because it’s just always, it’s raining invasive species for us. And I don’t want to cut myself off from the world either. Every commune has failed for the most part or fails in its own ways. So it’s not like I think that’s a solution, but maybe being more mindful and trying to build some structures that force some mindfulness about what is not of my place and what can I do here could help.

Sarah [00:52:46] Yeah. Listen, my word for 2026 is analog, guys. It’s analog. We got to get out of the invasive species. Why do I feel like we always end up with the phones? So depressing. But here I am again talking about my phone. I was just writing in my journal that I’ve put all these different structures in place over time and. And trying to find a way to be in a symbiotic relationship with my phone. It was like the longest break-up of my life. And finally realizing like, no, it’s not going to work. I think I was trying to go back in time. I think I was trying go back in time to when social media was a different thing and try to get my way back to there. But that’s just not what it is anymore. And so coming to realize that it’s just a TV I hold. And so how much time do I want to watch TV? And seeing it that way and realizing you only have so many minutes in a day and any one you spend there is not going to be spent with the people close to you. It was hard though. It’s sad. I’m kind of sad for what that glimmer of promise we did see at the beginning of the technological revolution and the social media and the way it did add to the ecology of our places. Facebook at the beginning and seeing people’s comments and understanding they understood what was going on in your life because you understood what’s going on in their lives. And it was a glimmer, but I think it was the mirage. But it is sad to let it go. I’m sad. I’m sad that I don’t take pictures the way I used to. I’m said that I don’t have Instagram the way it used to be. I am sad. I’m a little sad about all of it, but I think that time is over and I do think we’re just continuing to figure that out and transition into something different and new. And I don’t know what that’s going to look like, but it does feel like we are not the only ones asking that question.

Beth [00:55:10] The phone for me I don’t think it is just a TV that I hold. I think that’s how I use Instagram now for sure. It is just TV, for sure. And honestly, I think that is better for me than when I was a publisher constantly because that space for me of who’s commenting on my photo and what are they saying? And did I write a compelling caption? That wasn’t great for me. When I publish something, I still do really hold on to what the reaction to it is in a way that I have been working on for 10 years and will keep working on as we do this work and are publishers. But to be a personal publisher all the time was not great for me. So I think it is better that Instagram is just TV now for me. My phone, though, my capacity to live life with other people is so connected to my phone. Even the people who I live close to being able to feel like I’m in conversation pretty much all day with people who are important to me. I don’t know how else I would get that now in a world where it is hard to have people who just like stop by. Like it is to have a spontaneous gathering. You can’t count on like we always do this thing at this time. And so I do think the phones are a huge source of struggle in my life and lots of people’s. And I can’t find a neat and tidy way to say and therefore I’m going analog with my phone because it also does facilitate connection. I mean, that’s the problem, right? With every drug there’s enough of it that works.

Sarah [00:57:05] Well, I think that’s what I’ve realized is, and maybe that’s what I’m sad about, it will involve me letting go of some connection. That’s hard. I thinks that but those connections were very I mean not surface, but sort of surface in a way. I don’t think I’m supposed to be in conversation all day long with my friend who lives in New York City. Maybe we should just write letters. I don’t know. You know what I mean? I’m realizing that, yeah, it is going to change and that’s okay because there’s something about in particular like texting Marco Polo, Voxer, the sort of give and take that sets a level of relationship and conversation that I think is just a little too high to be maintained face to face. Because you’re kind of like you’ve got time to think about your best response. You’ve got to time to think about, type the best joke. You’ve got memes and this multimedia thing at your fingertips that is not true in conversation. Like you don’t have that shortcut in conversation and you don’t have that way of communicating in conversation that way. And also being in conversation that way requires very little sacrifice and stumble and humanness that I think is important in relationships. And so I’m just realizing like, well, that’s okay. That’s okay. And this is hard for me because I’m a people collector, but I don’t actually need to maintain friendships with every person whose company I’ve enjoyed since the age of 16 because it’s just not necessary. I have that drive after watching it myself. And that’s why the phones were kind of like problematic for me because it allowed me to do that. And so just wanting to be here now means I can’t be there with them all the time or even some of the time, most of the times, occasionally.

Beth [00:59:16] No, I think that’s fair. I mean, it’s a balancing act for sure. And I do not collect people the way that you do. So I don’t have as many people kind of pulling at me in those spheres. I also don’t live near my family. It’s just a complex problem for me.

Sarah [00:59:36] For everyone.

Beth [00:59:38] Yeah, for all of us. It is that balance of like there are common problems here and then there are problems based on how your life is oriented. And I don’t really know what the answer is, except the one thing I feel like I know, the thing that I feel like this year in particular has taught me is that the things that you want to really be meaningful in your life, you do just have to keep showing up for. Whether it really works on the calendar or not. And I am beginning to orient my life more to the people who see it that way, and less to the who are always too busy to make that kind of commitment. I think that’s what Habits of the Heart has to say, right? It’s the habit more than anything else.

Sarah [01:00:33] Yeah, it’s the habit.

Beth [01:00:34] There was someone on our Frankenstein trip, we were talking about virtue, and she said that she was working less in her life to define virtue as like ideal and more as ritual.

Sarah [01:00:45] I like that. That’s what Elizabeth Oldfield’s book, Fully Alive, is about, guys. That’s so good.

Beth [01:00:49] I think that’s really good.

Sarah [01:00:51] Yeah, I agree. I love this book and I’m going to read it again at some point. Maybe in 2030 I’ll read it again. Put it on the calendar, guys. Put it on the calendar.

Beth [01:01:04] Thank you for reading along with us. Thank you for struggling through some of it with us. This felt like a struggle to me, but I think it’s a good struggle. I think the reason that it’s interesting to continue to do this work after 10 years is the habit of it, that we just sit down and do it over and over and over again. I think that’s where all the magic happens. So we appreciate you being part of it as you are. So thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. Have the best holidays available to you. And we will keep seeing you here in our little community where we have the habit of gathering.

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Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

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