Polarized America. Polarized Self: A Call for Collaboration
I live in a polarized body. My very being is compromised by competing characteristics. Mexican-American heritage–bilingual, bicultural. College-educated millennial on need-based scholarship. Latina social justice leader in white evangelical conservative communities. Independent voter in hyperpartisan America. I have no tribe that can truly represent me; my identity lacks clarity. I am politically, ethnically, spiritually homeless.
This internal dissonance has created endless external clashes. It is actually exhausting and harmful to my physical and mental wellbeing to be surrounded by others who think I am wrong or crazy and it feels like I am constantly surrounded by people who look and think differently than I do. I often assume that everybody else is happily categorized. But as I began to dig into data, listen to friends, and observe society, I started to notice something surprising—it’s not just me.
Majority Isolation: The Bad News
Perhaps you find it intriguing to have so many polarities expressed within one human body and soul. Even though many of us have been comfortable within one ‘tribe,’ the country is changing steadily. According to Pew Research Center data the US is becoming less ethnically, spiritually, and politically homogenous.1 I embody and experience these demographic shifts in a real and grounded way. Perhaps you see yourself in the numbers as well.
The shocking data on partisan animosity and toxic congressional gridlock are hard to swallow—our country is deeply divided. The data confirm the subtle yet persistent struggle that we experience at the dinner table, church potluck, or the office water cooler. We feel alone.
So now what?
We find ourselves at a key moment of decision. It is an election year and each of us—one by one—have to make a political decision. No, I am not talking about option A vs. option B of the presidential candidacy, although I care deeply about that outcome. I am referring to option A, B, and C of our shared future.
Option A: Tribalism
“Fight for victory, volunteer, buy the bumper sticker! Maintain a stronghold on your positions and stand your ground. If we don’t win… they will ruin America.”
Option B: Apathy
“Why bother? The viciousness of the mudslinging, the noisy media and your own relative smallness inspires only ‘Netflix and chill.’ Vote Ignorance and Apathy 2016 by hitting ‘snooze’ on that alarm clock just one more time. Maybe four years from now you will wake up and care.”
Option C: Collaboration and E pluribus unum
In a world characterized by these tempting and all-too-typical options we frequently forget to consider a third way. In this 2016 election and beyond, I am hoping for an expression of our nation’s motto—E pluribus unum, ‘out of many, one.’ E pluribus unum inspires us to ruthlessly re-evaluate and recalibrate the balancing act between self and society, private and public. Out of many states and stakeholders, one. Out of many peoples, religions, political parties, one. We bring this oneness into existence through collaboration—even when it makes us frustrated or fearful.
A Technicolor Self: The Good News
The good news is that on every scale, from the upper echelons of policymakers to the individual activists, there are transpartisan leaders modeling unlikely partnerships and creating solutions with ‘respect, open mindedness, and integrity.’2 Inspired by these leaders, I am driven to pioneer new frontiers politically and personally.
Personally, I have learned to allow my polarized being both space and grace. What does this look like? Offering myself space and grace means judging myself less, exploring new ideas, and forgiving myself for past mistakes or over-corrections. I can then do the same for the isolated majority.
Personally, I have resented myself or my circumstances for not creating more certainty, but now I accept myself as a bridge builder. I have the opportunity to hold out one arm to embrace my gangster, cholo cousins while holding out the other to my white, educated church family. Politically, as I give myself permission to agree with values from both the GOP and DNC, I find that I live in a healthy and whole body that craves cross-partisan collaboration.
Our divided country needs people who will respectfully tweet their convictions and also learn from their political adversaries. We need neighbors who disagree on fracking but unite to end bullying in their schools. We are waiting for everyday heroes, especially the tortured, polarized souls who can challenge the status quo and unite our nation.
You and I have a choice when we cast our votes and also the second we release the ballot: we can join a camp with all the tribal fire in us, we can stay in bed and wait for the world to change, OR we can commit to the labor of love as citizens of this country and begin to walk the third-way path of transformative transpartisanship.
I hope you will join me and the thousands of millennials who are ready for option C.
Endnotes
What happens if we consider transforming ourselves and our neighborhoods with all three of those “options” listed above? For example, instead of accepting a condition of tribalism, what happens when we reconsider all the virtues of tribal cultures that still govern themselves well, that do not dump 18 tons of carbon dioxide per capita into the air annually, that do not encourage members of the tribe to isolate, but welcome every member’s contributions to tribal health and well-being? Can we embody the values of keeping values front and center and grounding our characters where we are and with out own peeps, these being our neighbors and co-workers? Can we welcome everyone with rich empathy, more richly welcoming then when we know already they disagree with certain of our opinions, and listen to them until we understand the values undergirding their own concerns? Can we welcome others to challenge our views so that they help us sharpen our seeing into whatever we are looking into and upon? Do such considerations not invite us to consider far more broadly reaching and more deeply penetrating contemplations?
Doesn’t this then invite us to also consider transforming option 2, apathy, into the practices that brought and still bring the great Axial Age prophets to our attention, and rightfully so? Can we consider re-creating the tribal traditions of sending/taking our selves into “the desert” or “the cave” or “the darkness” for “forty days and forty nights” of meditation, prayerfulness, contemplations as they emerge through us and the silence? Remember, it brought the Tao te Ching through Lao tse. It brought the Bagavad Gita through Krishna. It brought the gospel through Jesus; the gospel that transformed the war-mongering god into the God of Love. It brought Socrates to discover that the then-already ancient gospel posted at the oracle of Delphi was indeed very ancient and very wise: recognize thyself. Recognize ourselves in one another, in plants, in animals, in whatever living thing we encounter as we encounter it. As Socrates insisted, we can know nothing any better than we can recognize ourselves in it. We can have no knowledge greater than self-understanding.
Such contemplations, then, suggest another mountain range of transformative opportunities: the collective ones. Bringing all these ancient spiritual teachings, especially the practices back into the tribe, neighborhood, community, holding our communion with one another while enriching and cultivating these very ancient practices of spiritual health.
I discovered myself in my redneck neighbor; we now joke with one another about whose neck is more red and what good it might be this way. We also have very serious discussions about the challenges of bringing empathy into the presence of those determined to clobber us over the head with their own ideological certainties.
Indeed, if the Western tradition of philosophy has brought us anything more than what Socrates did, it has been the confidence of seeing in every certainty an Achilles Heel of the spirit. Such certainties are not dismantled with other more certain certainties. Rather, listening until we see behind, beyond, and through that certainty into the spiritual need, and then waiting silently until we see the open path to feeding that spiritual need the nourishment it welcomes. No, it isn’t always easy. No, it doesn’t happen immediately. What, if not time, is on our side, to the extent we welcome it here?