The seasons of political elections come and go, each characterized not only by a set of particular issues but a peculiar tone to the public discussions and debates. Invariably the constellation of issues and challenges facing the country and its political leadership is anchored in but a handful of extra-ordinary issues, those that seem to evoke heightened interest and inspire civic participation, but may or may not actually point our way forward as a nation. Ballots are cast, swearings-in occur, and we get on with our lives, whether we are pleased or disgruntled at the outcome. It is what it is—and we hope to see another day.
Wars and wages, rights and responsibilities, freedom and fairness, equality and ecology, safety and security: these are the provinces within which we have crystallized the issues of political elections in seasons past. With confrontation and pugnacity, we achieve a measurable degree of social and political resolution, and move on.
Now, however, it all seems to be different. True, election cycles for the last twenty years have been discordant. The Clinton and Bush years managed to draw cultural and ideological boundaries, marking out the limits of durable political power and exposing the practices of its abuse. But the environment in which the current election cycle is taking place has become thoroughly toxic, inimical to reasoned debate and adverse to lucid reflection on the issues. This is characteristic of practically all our political venues, local, state, and national. There seems to be no forward vision that draws us together, only frantic apparitions of our national ruin or pretentious assertions of our national revival. Where once there might have been respectful engagement, there is now mostly inflammatory rhetoric and appeals to depraved, vicious, and mean-spirited instincts. There seem to be only frenzied passions and crueler divide; calmer heads do not prevail.
Undoubtedly some of this is endemic to politics. Nonetheless, the politics seem to have descended to the hellish underbelly of some infernal region of corporate political life. The political posturing and pandering for position over against one’s opponents is predictable, but the caricatures across the divide are extreme and capricious, and quite frequently fictional. Candidates find it necessary, by their own narcissism, the fear of their constituents, the manipulation of the media, the machinations of pundits, or all of the above, to take a position on a controversial issue, in a way that appeals to their political base but only exacerbates the deterioration of the public discourse and further inflames the controversy. The entourages of those running for office are skilled in demonizing those who think and believe differently; nothing seems to cultivate rhetorical restraint and honorable conduct.
While municipal and state governments are failing because of fiscal limits and a worsening economy, the national government is increasingly hard-pressed to negotiate socioeconomic solutions and navigate the shoals of a public ever more ideologically and culturally divided. Little wonder, then, that many are not merely choosing to sit out this election, but giving up altogether on our social, economic and political systems and seeking relief through retreat into a form of self-isolation.
In our current political season, the issues that seem to incite great frenzy on all sides are both local in nature and yet national in scope. Apart from the state of the economy which has a more direct impact on all who live in this country, one must think of the controversy over whether to build an Islamic cultural center two blocks from the site of the twin towers in New York City; this is an issue of religious freedom, just as it is an issue of sensitivity to grieving families. The trajectory of legal appeals and decisions now unfolding in the wake of the decision in the U.S. District Court overturning Proposition 8 prohibiting gay and lesbian marriage in California quite unambiguously raises the issue of equal rights and due process, as well as what it means to be a family. The legislation passed by the State of Arizona that authorizes certain policies and procedures in enforcement of state immigration law invokes issues of both federal responsibility and states’ rights, but it also raises the economic issues of employment and social welfare.
These issues so dominate public political discussion that it is virtually impossible to distinguish fact from fancy. Indeed, perhaps a truer way to say it would be: It is profoundly difficult to distinguish one whimsical and biased interpretation from another. But having said that, it is notable, nonetheless, that through these three totalizing issues run currents of xenophobia, homophobia, racism, ethnocentrism, elitism, imperialism, and nationalism. In my measured judgment, these ideologies and practices are the far greater threat to our civil democracy because they ultimately impinge on the possibility and reality of a just and good society.
In addition, coursing through these issues are matters of religion and society and the extent to which civil society and our government recognizes, values, and promotes diversity.
The fact that the United States is a diverse nation is unarguable. What is subject to debate—and increasingly the source of animosity—is the question of the types and the limits of diversity. We are, of course, familiar with differences in gender and race. These are set by birth. To these givens some would add sexual orientation; others would not.
Beyond these particular characteristics, however, there are other personal and social markers that distinguish both similarities and differences and give expression to our diversity. Here we must think of culture, ethnicity, language, and geography; age, education, marital status, and socioeconomic class; physical and mental abilities; and finally, political and religious views and practices.
Each one of us, in our various socioeconomic and religious contexts, and in company with others whose similarity to us renders our own perspective plausible, utilizes the social structures in which we are embedded as the normative frame by which we interpret ourselves and our world and those who are, by any measure or marker, different from us. There are two things that are important here: First, it is impossible for one to extract oneself fully and completely from an interpretive frame, especially one that is unnoticed and unexamined, broadly shared, and taken as normative. And second, it is also impossible to fail to recognize the differences in social markers and the groups they characterize, but how one interprets them and what significance is attached to them are matters of one’s own choosing.
Diversity, undeniably present in our society, is not a neutral phenomenon. Differences matter, and whether we like it or not, they are a signpost to the type of future we are forging for ourselves. In my estimation, the desire to embrace a pluralist society signals a more viable future for our nation, while the impulse to resist it forecasts a continuing clash of political ideologies and unceasing struggle for politically hegemonic power. Diversity is the fact of differences in social markers as represented in the place of work or the body politic. Pluralism, on the other hand, presupposes diversity. Indeed, a pluralist society is one that recognizes, appreciates, respects, and values the uniqueness, autonomy, and contribution of diverse groups who are part of the body politic. As Harvard’s Diana L. Eck describes it, pluralism is neither mere tolerance nor relativism, but rather the “energetic engagement with diversity” and “the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference.”
The challenge we now face, as evident in the currently volatile political issues, is this: How shall we, as a diverse society, cultivate pluralism as a civic virtue without compromising freedom and justice?
In his book, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), political philosopher John Rawls argues that a well-ordered society is one in which everyone accepts the same principles of justice, the structure of the society’s main political and social institutions is known or believed to satisfy these principles, and citizens have a good sense of justice and therefore conform with these basic institutions because they are perceived to be just (35). By these measures, we cannot call the United States a “well-ordered” society. At best, these represent a vision for democracy yet to be realized.
Rawls also observes that the political culture of a democratic society is marked by three things: First, “ the diversity of reasonable comprehensive religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines found in modern democratic societies is not a mere historical condition that may soon pass away; it is a permanent feature of the public culture of democracy.” Second, “a continuing shared understanding on one comprehensive religious, philosophical, or moral doctrine can be maintained only by the oppressive use of state power.” And third, “an enduring and secure democratic regime, one not divided into contending doctrinal confessions and hostile social classes, must be willingly and freely supported by at least a substantial majority of its politically active citizens” (36–38).
The United States is an extraordinarily diverse nation. This diversity is manifest in all the social markers, institutions, political views, and religious traditions that constitute our society. Only oppression and tyranny can impose a uniformity on this nation, and how profoundly ironic it would be if, in a nation founded in opposition to social oppression and political tyranny, the social, political and religious forces in our society and government were mobilized to establish a cultural hegemony precisely in order to manage and control our diversity.
There is room for reasoned discussions and respectful debates in a modern pluralist democracy. The fact of differences of opinion and perspective, social status and religious observance, is not a flaw in our democracy, but rather its prerequisite. Whether we advance beyond factionalism and achieve fuller measures of freedom and equality in realizing a just and good society depends on whether we are willing to embrace our diversity as a means toward realizing the common good.
To achieve that, however, we will have to abandon the animus for “the other” who is different from us.
