Aaron Renn writes: “Better American versions of these are not just going to appear. They have to be built. We will need solutions that span all of the different domains I highlighted in the two charts above, and probably more than that. Unfortunately, all too many of our debates today are either irrelevant to the task of actually building that future America, or are actively about trying to keep us from building it. We need to make sure we are focused on the right challenges and tasks.”
I love AI and other tech advances, but we also need to develop the American people. You do not get a durable civilization by doing only acceleration or only moralizing. You need both stacks built together, or the whole thing destabilizes.
People do not automatically adapt to structural change such as AI. Post–Civil War America worked because elites understood that industrial acceleration without human formation produces chaos, resentment, and revolt. The Progressive layer was not charity. It was regime maintenance.
Three hard truths follow from Renn’s framework.
First, formation beats redistribution.
The Human-Social Stack that worked focused on capability, discipline, and integration, not primarily on transfers. High schools, civic rituals, professional norms, labor organization, public sanitation, and shared national identity mattered more than cash. Today we talk endlessly about benefits and protections, but far less about building competence, self-command, and social trust. You cannot compensate your way out of cultural and institutional decay.
Second, elite formation is unavoidable.
Every successful transition creates a new governing elite, whether it admits it or not. The Progressive era produced the Eastern Establishment, managerial professionals, and a shared moral language that allowed coordination. Our current failure is not that elites exist. It is that we deny their legitimacy while letting them rule anyway. Better Americans require better elites, visibly trained for stewardship rather than grievance management or moral exhibitionism.
Third, national identity is infrastructure.
The earlier transition deliberately replaced state-level identity with national identity. That was not sentimental. It was functional. Mass industrial society requires high trust among strangers. Today’s fragmentation into lifestyle, ideological, and moral tribes is not a side issue. It is a direct threat to techno-industrial capacity. A country that cannot agree on who “we” are cannot run an advanced civilization for long.
We need schools that teach discipline, technical competence, and civic responsibility rather than therapeutic self-expression. Workplaces that train people into adult roles rather than treat them as permanent adolescents. Civil society that integrates newcomers into a shared culture rather than flattering difference forever.
It means pairing acceleration with dignity. AI, automation, and biotech will hollow out old roles. If people feel useless, they radicalize. The answer is not make-work or permanent grievance politics. It is creating new paths to contribution, mastery, and status that are socially legible and widely accessible.
It means moral realism. The Progressive era failed where it tried to perfect humanity through coercive moralism. We are repeating that mistake. Formation works when it aligns incentives, norms, and institutions with human nature, not when it pretends humans are infinitely malleable.
We need policies that build social trust and social cohesion. We should glorify what we have in common, not what divides us. Pushing diversity means pushing poison.
Renn’s core insight is that transitions are engineered, not wished into existence. Better Americans will not emerge from better vibes, better slogans, or better online arguments. They will emerge if institutions are rebuilt to demand more of people while giving them real paths to meaning, competence, and belonging.
Acceleration without formation gives you China.
Formation without acceleration gives you stagnation.
The only stable path is building both at once and being honest about the costs.
