Mediating Truth

No matter whose camp received your support in the 2016 election, it seems clear that our country is in disrepair: an unsettled energy permeates our sociopolitical institutions.  Dysfunction prevails, extremism has replaced our cultural fulcrum, and uncertainty has taken up residence in our lives.  My human instincts – the ones that I don’t validate against some accepted norm – tell me that the American standard has shifted.  My knowledge of history makes me harken to repressive eras and cautions me to prepare, now that their hallmark signs have begun to surface.  I say these things, not because my candidate didn’t win, but because the same instincts operating within me (even now) that engender empathy, cooperation, and progress now suddenly feel unacceptable, if not criminal.  But, whatever.  Empathy, cooperation, and progress also compel me to set aside the urge to retreat into resignation and, instead, seek reconciliation on exactly those grounds.

This idea now seems timely, the notion that labeling and self-interest must stop.  I’m not talking about identity politics as pejoratively described by some pundits.  Rather, I refer to a recent, hostile unwillingness to see ourselves in others.  Only with extreme effort or willful ignorance does one deny the existence of innate human worth – this is nothing new.  Lately, though, the drive to exclude and dehumanize is vehement.  So, whether the impetus is current economic hardship or past generational prejudices, we are witnessing the warmed over practice of defining groups of people using outward perceptions necessarily aligned with our fears.  When one appreciates the convergence of these behaviors, acknowledgment that this newest constituency has as its standard bearer the President of the United States is beyond frightening.  While we have much work to do, I believe that it is possible to withstand this wave of separatism and emerge a stronger nation.  I believe that we have been presented with a most unexpected and fertile ground from which to create a reincarnation of America that is home to all manner of class, gender, ethnicity, and immigrant.

This country has, from its beginning, narrated its autobiography in terms of exceptionalism.  Its leaders are ever noble, and its people are righteous in all things.  Revisionist history takes on a life of its own to perpetuate this false “persona.”  To a majority, though, this caricature is the reality they navigate daily, dishearteningly pushing the true knowledge of our national DNA to the margins of historical significance.  In that sense, each of us has been fooled.  We have been spoon fed that version of history that complements rhetoric, without regard for times like these, when clarity is critical to charting our future course.  There is no more persuasive argument to strip our realities bare and confront our biases than that laid at our feet by this chief executive.  This President is now under investigation.  However, it is worth noting that both the leadership and the hardline support of the party that ensconces him tries desperately still to validate his legitimacy.

Amid this dissension, we must do the hardest thing and recognize our hypocrisy despite the social advantages it brings: How do I demand respect of my philosophies and decisions, yet boldly deny the same to you?  How do I characterize a group of people without reflection, but except from that group the one neighbor or one coworker who somehow revealed her humanity?  Though it may be rehearsed, this practice continues in its counterintuitiveness.  Recall, for example, that Africans were happier as slaves than freed men and women, and indigenous people just wanted a westward vacation – this also is nothing new.  So, what do we see and fear in each other that justifies the active withholding of those rights we deem basic for ourselves?  This question is critical to beginning the process of national accord among current oppositional forces.  The ensuing dialogue, however, requires that we refrain from spouting canned justifications and retorts.  Rather, now is beyond time for analysis into how we created this sociopolitical impasse; honest inquiry into who we aspire to be as a people; and passionate advocacy from those who responsibly answer the call.

I predict that things will get worse for American interpersonal relations before they get better – change is hard.  Despite the current level of unrest observed in communities and Congress, within protests and the White House, I nonetheless have faith that there are more of us who value the outcome that results when we want as much for our neighbor as for ourselves.  More importantly, these times have revealed the deep chasms that now seem uniquely formed to the contours of the challenging circumstances we now face.  This signals to me an historic window of opportunity to not only showcase our better angels but to save our very souls.