Tribes

If we practiced more charity toward each other, we as a nation would be stronger. I mean "charity" in the sense of forbearance from judging others.


1. Trouble in town.Because we don’t forbear from judging others; we aren’t charitable toward each other. Instead, we've become tribal. There’s a "conservative" tribe. There’s a "liberal" tribe. And among tribes, it’s us-versus-them. We live in mutual hostility.

We’re like an unhappy couple that can’t divorce. And everything the other does is interpreted in the most dismal light.

So, we don’t have policy disagreements. Instead, our president is a "socialist". Or a "communist". Or a "Muslim". We learn from Glenn Beck that he "has a deep-seated hatred of White people." The left’s bogeymen of the right, like the Koch brothers, are seen as evil incarnate, persons bent on tearing down government so that there is no rival to the power of the rich. It’s not policy, it’s personal.

When policy is discussed, it’s discussed un-charitably. Leaders who know better speak of "death panels" in the Affordable Care Act ("ObamaCare" to its detractors). There were no "death panels". They were invented to make Democrats who sought to save lives look like villains who sought to end lives.

Then the world turned. Recently, Republicans proposed Medicare reform. Good or bad, their proposal should have been debated. But, stung, Democrats gladly sawed the branch off behind the Republicans. Republicans fell to earth, to the glee of the Democrats.

Now nobody dares make risky proposals in response to an in-rushing crises. Politically, we're more paralyzed for that.

Hatred percolates and boils over. I’ve read internet discussion-threads between liberals and conservatives that are vicious slanders of each other’s motives, honor, and intelligence. If these conversations had taken place in person, the parties would have to be physically separated.

We aren’t "Americans" any more. We’re tribes of a fractured polis.

Media companies manipulate our weakness in charity. There must be a tribal element to our brains that glories in this us-versus-them mentality, that make these tribal appeals so successful. These media companies bind their followers by engaging the worse, tribal angels of our natures.

There is little reaching across. Action heroes aren’t like Atticus Finch. They don’t persuade. They vanquish. Politically, we don’t want to be Atticus Finches; we want to be action heroes. Political rights are at risk; what is wanted is not a fair election, but elections in which our side wins, by any means necessary. Even by voter intimidation. Even by dis-enfranchisement. Un-charity body-checks democracy.

We aren’t "Americans" any more. We cooperate less; we play political king-of-the-hill more.

Un-charity colors debate. We don’t see the long-term unemployed as victims of hard economic times. They’re freeloaders who would rather do nothing than work. So tax breaks for the wealthy who don’t need more money are preferred to the extension of unemployment benefits to people who do. On the other side of things, people are labeled "war-mongers" for supporting military action.


2. Charity is not naive.For all this, we don’t see ourselves as un-charitable. We see ourselves as pragmatic, realistic. We say to ourselves that it is naive to see somebody or some group as good, if they are evil. And we are convinced of their evil.

But charity doesn’t call us to see our adversaries as good. It calls us to see them as complex. They are not action-adventure movie villains who are evil and only evil. They are flesh-and-blood human beings, like us, good and bad, who, like us, maybe never did anything in their lives with a pure motive; and that would include doing nothing with a purely bad motive.

If we see our fellow human beings as complex, we don’t have to worry about being naive. Seeing complexity in others is the opposite of naivete.


3. What keeps us from charity.Mind-forged manacles bind us away from charity.

One manacle is pride. Charity requires humility. Pride scorns and judges. Charity compels us to think that we don’t have all the answers; that we aren’t always right; that we might be wrong; that somebody we disagree with might have a point. Pride places us, in our minds, above our adversaries. It draws us away from charity.

Another manacle is love of certainty. While we practice un-charity, the world is simple and clear. We and our tribe are good; they and their tribe are bad. We sleep with a peaceful conscience, even if it is peaceful because it’s un-examined. To practice charity is to leave behind comforting certainties. That takes courage.

Another manacle is habit. We have a habit of judging. Charity comes when we have a new habit of humility; a new habit of suspending judgment; a new habit of seeing complexity.

                   4. Speaking of myself.

I judge a lot. I spent some of yesterday practicing not judging, practicing thinking better of people than is my habit, practicing seeing people as three-dimensional instead of as cartoons. I was happier for it. I was better for it.

When I practice charity, I don’t ignore that there is error in the world, and evil. Not all answers are equal, nor all solutions to the problems we face. But charity requires me not to choose condemnation of my adversaries as my first response to controversy.


5. Conclusion.We can become a nation again. We can become less tribal and more American.