The Power of Vocation

Sometimes, you read something, and it won’t let you go. My friend Saelyx Finna sent me Mana Afsari’s article “Last Boys at the Beginning of History,” and instead of calling fifteen friends to discuss, I'm attempting a synthesis here. Hit me up or start a comment thread if you've got thoughts. ??

Back in 2017, as an undergrad at the University of Southern California, Mana Afsari asked a chaplain for advice:

“How could I find a vocation or a calling? How could I be a good person? The chaplain told me to look around and identify the people who had lives I wanted to live, and ask myself what their values were. I quickly realized those moral exemplars were not in the secular student group I’d joined, which had become increasingly morally vacant, pseudo-rationalist and eccentric…”

“Other liberal students and professors, if they had accomplished some degree of personal success, whether wealth, erudition or relationship satisfaction, dared not talk about it, since it would put them at risk of being seen as trying to be better than others, or the worst thing you could be, morally prescriptive.”

Fast forward to 2024, with a graduate degree under her belt, Afsar is covering the fourth installment of the National Conservatism conference, whose attendees include hundreds of young men, well-heeled and 100% committed to the cause. Her professor from Cambridge, James Orr, gives the closing speech:

“Everyone is conservative about what they love most... it’s our common objects of love that stitch us together as a moral community. It’s that shared horizon of affection that will keep you writing those checks to the government without too much resentment for the neighbors benefitting from entitlements, welfare and largesse. That’s what made America great… “

With Orr’s framing, Afsari hones in on the idea of young NatCon attendees as New Romantics: “Young men looking for meaning, guidance, purpose and use, for a world where they could belong. They needed a role in a political future.”

A role, a purpose, a vocation, a future rooted in… love? Common objects of love that stitch us together as a moral community? Could that be what makes America great?

Citizen University 's Eric Liu has consistently led with heart and vocation, calling Americans to reckon with the moral questions of our day in spirited conversation to cultivate civic love. Like the folks in Afsari's undergrad experience, I've often stumbled on the term "moral"— who are we to prescribe the way? And yet, growing up in church, I assumed that everyone had a sense of purpose or calling, inextricable from a responsibility to the greater good. As an adult, I recognize it's more complicated than that, but I still believe in this responsibility.

Throughout my lifetime, I have been moved by hope and the possibility of transformation. I have also been overwhelmed by the frozen power of policy and the fraught urgency of protest — the white-hot reaction and counterpoint exhaustion. How do we sustain the work when we’re tired of marching? Where do we turn to be refueled and revived? It is in the heart spaces that we find healing. The heart and the mind. It takes both in alignment to be effective. And to be human.

Without heart—without a sense of purpose—and without mind—without a clear reason—we lose conviction. We are prone to live our lives on the flip side of hope, seeing despair at every turn. So when people ask where the Resistance is, I wonder if the Resistance is having a moral reckoning, and that is a quiet and internal experience, a moment of silence.

Are we barreling toward the “end of history,” or is this the beginning of a new era? There’s no shortage of intellectual thought to argue this in metaphysical and more certain terms. The sense of belonging this debate offers young minds— the potential for moral connection and validation, the heart-to-heart conviction — is intoxicating.

Afsari says: "Trump’s movement and NatCon seem tailored to what they longed for:?not?to be the last men in politics, but rather the first men to participate in a political future worthy of their heroic aspirations.”

There is a revived call to greatness, and we need to look carefully at how we define that increasingly Americanized word. What does it mean to be great, and is that what we’re aspiring to be? At what cost? And in whose eyes? We’ve seen a generation come of age through a Trump presidency. Now they’re looking to him for answers.

Afsari concludes her reflections with the final moments of the “Liberalism for the 21st Century” conference that she attended directly following NatCon, just a mile away.

“The mood at the liberalism conference, and the position of those athwart post-liberal ‘progress,’ is well summed by a young man, one of the few in attendance, seated directly in front of me as [Francis] Fukuyama closes. As we applaud liberalism’s most robust defense, he jokes loudly to his friend, ‘Yeah!!! Woohoo!?What are we going to do?!’ The NatCons may not know exactly who they are—economic leftists who hate leftism, right-wing progressives who hate progress or moral traditionalists who praise the male libido—but they know what they’re doing. They have a vocation. Does anyone else?”

I do not believe one side can claim the moral high ground these days, but it seems that, at the very least, we need a more explicit call to something higher or deeper within us. Will the appeal be to our “better angels” or to greatness? Or to both?

Whether our vocation is in blocking, building, or being, we would do well to identify the gifts and resources within us that match the needs of the moment. There is a power in calling this forth, both in ourselves and in our peers.

For me, being American right now calls for a great deal of compassion for myself and for everyone else. I’ve found support in the work of Julia Frodahl and A Million Compassionate People. Building, for me, is Civic Saturday Akron, gathering with neighbors to celebrate community and shared civic power. Blocking is localized and personal; whatever the harm is that we ourselves are experiencing or we are concerned about for others, there are groups and friendships, alliances, and organizations working round the clock to protect and care for one another. Locally, it’s groups like People Feeding People bringing free healthy food to a city where 50% of the population can’t afford groceries. It’s Grace House providing hospice care for people who have been abandoned or are homeless, a resting place as they enter their end-of-life transition. Blocking harm is a huge and sometimes lifelong vocation.

So, how do we inspire greatness as we invite people into the compassionate work of being human in a privileged nation with unparalleled resources and great power? With great power comes great responsibility. Just like the young man at the liberalism conference I wonder, "What are we going to do?!"

Read Mana Afsari’s essay “Last Boys at the Beginning of History” in The Point.

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