Amid massive upheavals and crisis, from flooding to cyber hacking to abortion to Ukraine to Gaza to our very understanding of existence itself, America is not fixing any of the problems we face. Our worst nightmares become less and less improbable and no one can raise any issue without immediately triggering implacable partisan opposition. Any attempts to fix the process, rules of office holding, campaign funding or legislative procedure, meet a Newtonian “equal and opposite” reaction somewhere in the political arena.
Thus homelessness will not abate, nor the deterioration of health care services nor school shootings nor drug abuse nor the chaos abroad. Our federal debt is so high, and Congress’ ability to fund our spending so frail, that we risk our ability to float government debt, loss of which would trigger complete economic catastrophe. We can’t even acknowledge the depth of these dangers. So we live as though they won’t happen, until they do.
Our first, dire, need, is to defuse the automatic, dogmatic and intransigent reflexes that preclude real discourse on anything. Only if we, citizens and political figures alike, can speak to the issues without putting partisan point scoring first, will any coherent discussion of any problem be possible.
Second, even if we somehow allow ourselves to speak coherently among ourselves, we will need to practice mutual self-restraint for any solutions to get a fair trial. We need to defuse partisanship in all the funding, planning, and especially execution, of any plans. Otherwise, whichever side holds office will only enact partisan slanted measures, which will be undone when the other side takes over.
No rules or laws, no restrictions on money or terms limits, no ballot configurations will infuse restraint into our politics. No politician will pass up the chance to block the other side in any initiative. If Americans want to fix problems, address dysfunctions, and equip ourselves for a wildly changing future, ordinary people, must cut the habits of partisanship out of our mindsets and discourse.
We lack basic comity, a shared sense that we all want to see our problems addressed for our society to work, and for our nation to survive. Comity requires a common allegiance above the politics of left and right, that we all agree overrides partisan identities. We all insist we are American, but we all reject “the other” side. If the differences preclude common national identity, we lose this nation.
The proper, and the only, source of American comity resides in the creed by which the nation conceived itself in 1776. “We” who were declaring independence only identified ourselves as holders of certain truths – a creed – of inherent personal rights equally endowed in all, and that government exists to secure those rights. “We” never based our nationhood on blood, soil, church or tongue; only on this holding, this creed. That same “We” later promulgated the Constitution, a second governing state for this nation.
Our defining creed is abstract and aspirational; it will never be fully implemented in the world. But the nation exists by our belief, so each and all of us, as persons and as this People, need to carry it forward in practical life. Where practice falls short, we must devise next steps toward that aspiration together. Any resort to blame or vilification only puts partisanship over comity. It resets the bottlestop.
Of course comity in creed is not necessarily agreement in policy. But it sets differences in policy and politics as differences over means, subordinate to the common ends of creedal aspiration. Nor is the creed license for free people to act on any urge without regard for others. All cede any right to violate others’, in a social contract that underwrites any government in its creed-based duty to secure rights for all. Finally, our creed does not call merely for absence of injustice and political oppression. We all have the right to pursue our happiness, which in the broad sense is our exploration and effort toward personal fulfillment. It has been such pursuits that, alongside their own reward for the pursuers, have brought inventions, cultural growth, and so much dynamism to this nation.
Living up to our creed, then, not only secures our rights and guides our public discourse, but opens the future for human thriving. It is necessary for the nation’s survival, the proof that we can long endure. It also offers new, inspirational potential for the human condition. And only I, as each of us feels “myself,” can make this necessity into public reality.
How do I promote this creed in our discourse? It’s not just a matter of voting – without every “I” doing “my” part to change our discourse, the politicians will keep serving up the same polarizing pap. But where do I touch the public environment? If I run a business, or even just supervise a work group, I certainly affect others’ outlooks on life. How much of my conduct in my work builds trust among my workers, so that acting in comity does not feel naïve? Ditto for service providers. In my social circles, can I step up when outsiders are unfairly derided, or at least slide away? We need not be crusaders for abstract “others” over our own – self-righteous posturing is one source of polarization – but can we do just a little to nurture a tone of comity?
How, when, and why any of us might do a little something to build comity is a matter of circumstance. But common commitment will, if we all see its importance, re-set pubic discourse. Only then will the decision makers and the would-be leaders throttle back on the polarizing tropes that paralyze us.
Common Conviction 