A Path Toward National Unity

The air is filled with talk of unity.  It’s the theme of a new administration, and the ardent desire of a people exhausted by corrosive divisiveness pitting class against class, region against region, and families against families.  To be sure, the nation has struggled with growing disunity for several decades, but the last four years brought us dangerously close to violent insurrection encouraged by a president who delighted in creating divisiveness.  It was a way for him to unify his followers as true believers separate from, and in deadly conflict with all others who were not true believers.  He did it through a constant flow of fear mongering lies ranging across a broad spectrum of national concerns: immigration, national security, violent street crime, civil rights, economic opportunities, religious freedom, individual rights, race and more.  Following a pattern taken by despots past, his fear mongering lies and fantastical promises of better things to come became articles of faith for those who put their confidence in him.

Unlike tragic examples in other places and other times, he never commanded a majority of the public’s heart and mind, and that, perhaps, added to the awareness of divisive disunity.  The majority, sometimes a slim majority, were always able to see through his hucksterism.  His dedicated followers were equally aware that they were held in contempt by non believers, which was more evidence that they were right, and those others were enemies. 

So here we are, exhausted and thirsty for the restorative waters of unity.  We know that restored unity will not mean singleness of mind, but we want it to mean the needed stability in which differing opinions about shared facts can be worked out in good faith.  We know there will be hot tempers, intemperate words, and inflexible positions, but we also expect our restored sense of unity won’t allow them to defeat the working out of differences.

Achieving a new unity is not as easy as wanting it.  It requires the hard work of reconciliation, which, in turn, requires the humbling work of confession, amendment of life, and restitution.   For the nation as a whole, confession must be centered on a more complete understanding of our nation’s history that doesn’t ignore or trivialize the uglier episodes of our story, yet doesn’t demean the most worthy of it either.  Dispassionately illuminating the long hidden uglier side will be more than uncomfortable for those who want to disbelieve it, or who feel they’ve been personally shamed, or that it’s somehow unpatriotic to bring it up, but it must be done.   For many individuals, maybe most, it will require recognition that they have been ignorant of the truth, and unwilling contributors to systemic injustices that litter our history.

Amendment of life, like confession, has national and individual components.  National amendment of life is probably the more important.  It means restoring the integrity of our voting system by curtailing gerrymandering, outlawing voter suppression tactics, enforcing civil rights laws, restructuring law enforcement training protocols, and rebalancing our tax code to greatly increase the marginal tax rate in the top tier, and prohibit profitable corporations from avoiding all federal taxation.  It also means encouragement of new curricula for K-12 education that includes a more complete rehearsal of the American story, and a more thorough grounding in basic civics.  Individual amendment of life is more difficult because amending one’s life requires admitting that it needs amending, which, if that means humiliation of any kind, is not likely to happen.  What may be needed is a sustained nationwide campaign to promote a new set of American values and American way of life.  The nation did it well during WWII, and in the post war years when the white middle class way was celebrated as the American way.  It can do it again, this time celebrating the diversity of our unity.

Restitution, or reparation, is even more problematic.  Reconciliation is completed by the penitent through restitution that, to the extent possible, restores to wholeness what had been broken or taken.  The problem is that restitution is individualistic.  The person injured is to be made as whole as possible, bu there is little concern for the injured community.  An excessive focus on individualism is one reason the nation has fallen into such disunity.  If all we are is a land of individuals in which “politics has done its job if it can protect the autonomy of individuals and their property from one another” (William Cavanaugh), then we can never have unity, and communities will always be unstable entities ready to dissolve for any reason or none.

The corrosive divisiveness that has infected the nation has eroded the integrity of the community.  It is the community that must be made whole first.  The American myth of rugged individualism cannot be the only measure by which we are judged.  Restoring the rights of the community to be a healthy place for all persons, without exception, to live as fully as they are able, must be at least as equal to the rights of individuals to live freely.  The proponents of individualism will complain it means limitations on their rights, and it will, not to take away their freedom, but to assure everyone has access to the same freedom. 

Restitution as reparation is a hot topic these days, and it’s usually interpreted to mean cash payments to individuals.  To me that’s a cheap salve achieving nothing of lasting value.  Reparations that make a difference create communities in which “justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5).  It would mean stern correctives to injustices built into the system – that would be reparation of lasting value.

None of this would be easy, but it might be the way toward reconciliation and restoration of unity.