As military enlistments fall in the United States, policymakers ponder solutions to the recruitment and morality crisis.

Patriotism is part of our repertoire of civic ideals and identities, as Jean Bethke Elshtain reminded us. While its excesses and perversions are to be lamented, Patriotism rightly perceived yields a concern for the moral tenor of one’s culture.

The cultivation of civic virtue in America depends on artists and entertainers who imaginatively portray the human condition, honestly question the American regime, and constructively represent embodied civic virtue—whether in World of Warcraft, The Wire, Scandal, or elsewhere.

The first of a five-part epistolary exchange between the actor Richard Dreyfuss and Providence associate editor Susannah Black exploring such issues as the potential of civics education to combat the appeal of groups like ISIS, the place of religion in public life, and the roots of the ideas of the American founding.