I can only answer the question “What am I to do?” if I can answer the prior question “Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?” Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981/1984), p. 216.

The People’s Colleges, first published in 1949, records the story of Cornell University’s success in the field of extramural education. From four state colleges of the University... professors went out to the people of New York State with the best that the university had to offer.

There is vigorous reciprocity in the Extension Service because it is with the people, as well as “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

“... the satisfactions that belong to democratic living.”

Three Stories: Heroic Tragic Prophetic

“Our ethnic particularity becomes mere nostalgia and sentimentality.” “We become people with no depth, no depth of understanding, masters of technique and technology, but not of ourselves.” “We become superficial people, people with surfaces, public relations people.” “We begin to think of ourselves and each other in partial and inadequate and abstract ways.”

Public Narrative Story of Self Story of Us Story of Now

Find someone who is already working and try to support that person.

America is a dream. The poet says it was promises. The people say it is promises— that will come true.