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Pass whatever law you want, ban whomever you think is a troublemaker. We will remain deeply sick as a society, not one segment is wholly responsible for that sickness, and until we are able to recognize that in ourselves and each other none of this gets better.
The optimistic side of me wants to believe we can still be united in a common set of principles and goals. The cynical side of me asks what those could possibly be. Much of our division has been played up by parties and the media - but I fear that seed has taken root
For much of America’s history people were mostly either literally just trying to survive or united against a common external threat. Absent that, what unites us? The Constitution? We’re told it’s massively flawed and written by racists.
Capitalism? We’re told it’s evil and for the greedy? Our shared history? Today we use it mostly to point fingers at descendants of people who had nothing to do with it, and are told our accomplishments are from flawed times by flawed men.
And you would think that the beacon that drew and still draws so many to these shores, the promise of freedom and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, would be the one thing above all that would unite us. That’s still my hope but it hangs by a thread.
You see, “freedom” and “liberty” are mutable terms now that must be weighed against “equity”, “safety”, and “security”. All of them are important concepts, but they’ve been reduced now to meaningless words, mere rhetorical arrows shot by pundits and politicians.
In a culturally diverse society, a set of founding principles is not only beneficial, but VITAL to hold it together. Otherwise the Grand Experiment devolves into the same tragic and mournful tribal warfare that has plagued the entirety of human history
In a sense you could say rampant deconstructionism of our principles and history got us here. But more than that a widespread sense of hopelessness is the cause, made even more malignant by its multifaceted nature, its inability to be solved by attacking a single source
And what ultimately unites us today is our shared misery in what has become of us. All of us for different reasons & causes. If it were caused by a common source we could rally against it, but every faction cites a different demon, and the problem is they’re all partly right
The only thing - THE ONLY THING - that gets us out of this death spiral is not buttressing any single institution, not punishing any single person or faction or ideology, not restoring faith in government or religion or business or tech or any specific sector
What gets us out of this is our renewal of faith, trust, and accountability in one simple thing - each other. Our neighbor. Our brothers and sisters. Our fellow humans who are hurting as much as we are.
The only thing that can save us is what I guess I’ll call compassionate individualism, that sees us not as members of a party, race, age cohort, faction, ethnicity, sexuality but as one person talking to one other person and recognizing our shared humanity.
A lot of people already live their lives this way. I try to. I fail. We all do. We’re all flawed, including our elected officials, who are neither gods nor sages nor even particularly good mid-level managers tbh
But the most powerful interaction we have is not a leader spewing propaganda on a network of millions. It is one human talking to another. It’s seeing ourselves, our struggles mirrored in them.
This isn’t Kumbaya shit. Total agreement is boring and intellectually a dead end. It’s simply just a recognition of our basic humanity in each other. And right now, as a society, WE HAVE ABSOLUTELY LOST THAT.
I wish I had an easy or even an actionable solution. A lot of this feels like bullshit platitudes which I hate tbh. But I think really all of us - ALL OF US - need to stop listening to who we’re listening to and engage on our own behalfs.
Don’t look to someone with power or hidden truths. Look to your actual physical neighbors. Your fellow humans. What can bind us together is faith in each other at that level to do the right thing and rebuild upwards. It’s such a faint hope, but that’s what it’s gonna take
