I was recently reading Helen Lewis’s essay on podcaster Joe Rogan in the recent issue of The Atlantic. It’s a really interesting piece and I learned some things about Rogan I didn’t know before I read it.
At one point in the essay–I don’t want to get too deep into the context here–Lewis writes: “power is better mediated through institutions than wielded by individuals.” This is true. It is also true that ideas are best mediated through institutions, not by individuals. Anyone who has spent much time on social media knows that sites such as X are filled with individuals holding forth on the issues of the day. Substack provides opportunities for more intellectual depth than a tweet or Facebook post, but few people who write on this platform see themselves as part of a larger intellectual community or institution.
I understand this well. I had always hoped that my work at a Christian college might provide the kind of community I was seeking. And, in many ways, my work has been fulfilling. But as I realized that the college where I teach could not provide the kind of Christian intellectual community I was seeking–my colleagues were increasingly asking different questions than the ones I was asking–I set out to forge a professional identity of my own. I tried to find new conversation partners and reconnect with old ones.
For nearly fifteen years I blogged as a lone wolf at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. I developed a small group of regular readers. But I did not feel like I was part of something, to use the now tired phrase, “larger than myself.” In Fall 2020, it was time for a change. I got together with some friends to build an institution. I saw Current as a chance to bring my blogging to a larger enterprise that included other voices. You can still read The Way of Improvement Leads Home everyday, but you can now process the ideas advanced at the blog alongside a daily feature by a talented writer or a post by one of the authors at The Arena blog, a site with a decidedly different intellectual flavor than The Way of Improvement Leads Home.
I hope the voices at Current continue to provide an antidote to the kind of writing motivated by platforms, book sales, fame, and detached individualism. So far so good. Our platform is not large. We are not making money. We are motivated more by vocation than ambition. And we are not famous. But I hope we are cultivating a sense of community among our writers, staff, and readers, even if it is only community in the imagined sense that comes through reading.
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