During the past few months, I’ve been reassessing where I want to go next with this project. When I launched Liberal Confessions in late 2021, I was driven by a desire to figure out what had happened to the left-liberal politics I’d always identified with and why. As I’ve written about previously, the twinned advents of Trumpism and wokeism (which I now think of as post-liberal progressivism) shocked, disoriented, and confused me. Writing this Substack was a way to sort out my thoughts and reorient while connecting with others who were interested and perhaps experiencing similar feelings.
By last winter, however, this original animating impulse had faded. During the past year, I’d developed a much clearer conception of how my long-standing left-liberal political identity had developed and why it had recently imploded. Since I’m (rather weirdly) wired to chew obsessively on questions such as “what happened to the late 20th-century progressive liberal paradigm I grew up with?” until I’ve arrived at some sort of answer that satisfies, this sense of increased understanding was a relief.
But as is often the case, resolving one issue immediately raised another, namely: OK, then, so — now what?
Initially, I thought that wrapping up this project by fleshing out the conclusions I’d come to more thoroughly was the obvious answer. I’d write up the ideas I’ve sketched out here on Liberal Confessions more comprehensively, as a book. As I started to draft an outline, however, I quickly ran into a major obstacle: Namely, it didn’t feel at all satisfying to commit to a big project that was only about looking backward, particularly when that was colored by a sense of disappointment and loss. In fact, it was downright depressing.
After all, while I wanted to understand the past better, that was never really an end in itself. Deep down, I was hoping to come up with a new narrative about what had happened to American liberal democracy during the course of my lifetime (i.e., from the 1960s onwards) that not only made better sense of the past and present, but could also look forward to an imagined future. Without any sort of positive democratic vision to orient towards, simply parsing the past and present more closely felt increasingly pointless.
Consequently, I focused more on the question of what such a positive new political vision might be. To qualify, it would need to appear both reasonably plausible and inspiring (at least from my own personal perspective). If I could find or craft such a forward-looking paradigm, I figured, then I could move forward with my planned book project.
The problem was (and still is), however, that I couldn’t come up with anything close to the sort of compelling answer I was hoping to find. I’ve looked for a new paradigm to advocate in the work of the many excellent independent political commentators and media sources I follow regularly. But while there’re a lot of important ideas being articulated there that I support fully, there’s no overarching vision that (to mix metaphors) strikes the profoundly resonant chord I’m hoping to hear.
Mostly, there’s a lot of incisive critique of the existing political order. And that is certainly exceedingly valuable. But it does gets get depressing as a steady diet over time. Without a more full-fledged, forward-looking vision to sign onto, learning more and more about how bad things are now tends to generate a strong desire to disengage. I felt this aversion growing in myself and wondered: Rather than launching a book project, should I just hang up the whole thing?
Reflecting on this and other related questions, I’ve come to the following provisional conclusions:
I’d like to continue parsing why what I call post-liberal progressivism (a.k.a., wokeism) erupted in the mid-2010s and displaced the left-liberal paradigm I’d grown up with. I have many thoughts on this topic that I haven’t written out and shared yet. I’d like to finish that project as I still find it interesting and worthwhile (if also rather depressing).
That said, looking backward isn’t enough. I also want to develop a more positive and forward-looking political vision. Given that what I’m drawn to is both emergent and well off the beaten path, this will almost certainly take a good long time (if it ever comes together as I’d ideally like it to at all). In the meantime, it can be difficult to stay motivated. In today’s climate, it’s hard to care about politics if you not only don’t identify with Team Red or Team Blue, but actively dislike both.
Plus, it’s not just politics. Today’s Zeitgeist trends strongly negative. Maintaining a positive attitude requires swimming against a powerful cultural tide. And that, too, gets exhausting and can be difficult to maintain.
Consequently, to help myself keep the faith — and hopefully offer something of value to others in the process — I’ve decided to launch a second Substack-based writing project, Re/Generate. In contrast to Liberal Confessions, which focuses on politics and society, Re/Generate will be devoted to sharing resources and inspiration for personal resilience, growth, and renewal.
As I’m currently envisioning it, Re/Generate will feature writing (and perhaps podcasts!) on topics ranging from art, psychology, and spirituality to cooking, travel, and dogs. In all cases, my goal will be to capture something in writing that I’ve personally found to be helpful in living the best everyday life possible, and share it with you.
If you’re currently a subscriber to Liberal Confessions, I’ve taken the liberty of subscribing you to Re/Generate, too. (And if you’re a paid subscriber, I’ve added you at the same level for no extra charge.) This dual subscription setup is only to get going, however. Once Re/Generate is launched, each newsletter will operate independently.
Please note that if you ever want to unsubscribe, you can easily do so by clicking on the icon in the upper-right-hand corner (with three horizontal lines next to a circle), opening the drop-down menu, selecting “manage subscription,” and scrolling down to the designated box. (Hopefully, you won’t want to, but just in case.)
As always, feel free to share any thoughts in the comments below or via email at carolhorton@substack.com. And if you’ve read this far, thanks for your time and attention! It is truly appreciated.
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